


I guess this means we're going places.

by dawnofmandanceparty



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy Hargrove Needs a Hug, Billy Hurts His Own Feelings, But He Doesn't Get One For A While, Experiment Billy, Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Reference to Medical Procedures, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2020-09-29 00:03:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 37
Words: 54,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20434709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dawnofmandanceparty/pseuds/dawnofmandanceparty
Summary: When Billy comes back to Hawkins, he doesn't have a home.





	1. one.

The ride from the lab back into Hawkins is long and sort of torturous. Dr. Owens moves exactly at the speed limit, and Billy hugs his paper bag and looks towards the window without seeing anything. He’s pretty sure he nods off at some point, but he can’t really tell. 

The leaves have turned gold for the most part, and have started to fall from the trees. When Billy had first stepped outside to shuffle into a mediocre Chevrolet, this had surprised him. Last time he had been outside, it was early July. 

“William,” Owens says. Billy purses his lips but grunts his acknowledgement. “I realise, at this point, I’m not sure where you’d like to be dropped off. Any particular location you’d prefer?”

“Four-eight-one-nine Cherry Lane,” he says, automatic. He shifts a little, re-arranges himself so he’s looking straight ahead. The paper bag on his lap crinkles. Inside the bag, there is a list of emergency numbers that he’ll never use. There is an inhaler that Owens and the rest said will help him if his lungs decide to remind him of the time that they were turned into confetti by an interdimensional monster. The bag has his blue jeans in it, the ones that he wore to the hospital and then to the lab when they swept him from beneath the care of people who had no business knowing the whole truth. The bag has the bloodstained shreds of his white undershirt. He’s not sure why he’s keeping them. 

Owens asks for a few directions, but nothing more. Billy’s sure the guy’s had enough of him, having supervised him through testing and more testing since July 1985, and eventually physio for the past couple months or so. They had gotten to a truce eventually: If Owens kept his mouth shut more often than not, Billy would do the same. It wasn’t hard for him to stop with the weird motivational shit once Billy started calling him a bitch, so. 

Four-eight-one-nine looks about the same as when he left it: Floor to ceiling picture windows on either side of the door, the flowering shrub on the right. Shitty little cement steps that Billy is not looking forward to, because he was definitely stuck in that hospital bed long enough for his muscles to atrophy. Stairs are no longer his idea of a good time. 

“Well,” Billy pushes open the passenger door, “This is it, doc.” 

“Let me at least see you inside.” 

Billy steps up onto the curb, tests his legs. There are only three more steps into the house, and so far so good. “Fuck off.” He says it without bite to it, because that’s how he talks. He doesn’t really relish the thought of weathering Neil’s storm after he hadn’t come home for fifteen months. He’s almost sure that seeing some old guy waiting for Billy as he walks in would make it just that much worse. 

Billy shuts the car door with his free hand and is startled by his own reflection. Every bathroom in the lab had mirrors, but he had avoided them as best he could. Every so often, and very much still, Billy would be shocked by a reflective surface. He looked weird: kind of skinny, from not working out. The lab had cut his hair all the way down. He hadn't come to them with a change of clothes, so they let him take an extra pair of scrubs and a couple of things they had pulled from the lost and found. The hoodie was too short in the sleeves and wide in the body, but the windbreaker fit over it okay.

Billy walks up the path carefully, considering each step before he takes it. It's a new thing he does. He doesn't like it. Uneven ground fucks with him now, though, and it's better to be careful than it is to end up with a mouthful of concrete. 

There's a bit of tension in his shoulders that leaches out when he hears Owens drive off, leaving the street empty behind him. He doesn’t have a plan B now. Even before, when the looming threat of Neil was constant, or he wasn’t sure when he’d get kicked out for the final time, he’d always had his Camaro. Billy walks up to the door and takes a deep breath, holds it for a second. Lets go real slow. His keys were in his car and he's not even sure where his car is, so he just knocks and hopes someone's home.

Billy hears the inside door unlock and that tension's back again. When he sees the tall, broad shape, he takes a step back and his shoulders get about halfway to his ears before he realises that he doesn’t recognise the person inside. 

“We’re not buying anything today,” the man says sternly, and Billy feels as if the world’s been tilted on its side. The man has dark hair, a moustache. He’s broader than Neil, a little taller. Black. Billy watches him with wide eyes.

“Are you alright, son?” His voice is warm. Billy shakes his head. He remembers, after a moment, that the world is vertical, and he nods. The man frowns. 

“Are you looking for someone?”

“Hargrove,” Billy hears himself say. There are a couple moments before he forces himself to specify. “Neil Hargrove. Um… Susan Mayfield.”

The man’s frown deepens. Billy’s eyes track enough that he finds concern instead of anger, and he doesn’t know how to feel. 

“I spoke to a Hargrove, when I bought the house. He must be long gone by now. Sold this house so cheap, I almost wondered if it was haunted,” He chuckles. Billy doesn’t. The man looks pensive for a moment, then brightens: “I have a number that he left, in case I had any questions. I can give that to you. If you want it.”

Billy nods before he finds the words he needs. “Yes. Yes sir. Please.” The man’s height, the timbre of the voice, the sturdiness of his frame. Billy’s own uncertainty. Everything makes Billy feel small. The man says he’ll be right back, and as soon as he shuts the door behind him, Billy covers his eyes with his hands. He realises that his breathing is shaky. He holds his breath. Lets it out slowly. 

BIlly hears footsteps and drops his hands before the door opens back up. The man shows him a business card, and the phone number on the back is written carefully, clear. 

“That’s the number he gave me,” He tells Billy. He flips the card over.  _ Michael Hanlon _ , it says. “That’s me. I work at the library. So if you have any more questions, or if you just need to talk, you give me a ring. Alright, son?”

Billy nods. His hand shakes as he takes the card. 

Billy doesn’t make it very far down the road. He maybe walks five blocks before he needs to sit, and then he can’t get up again. He can bend his knees and push himself, just a little, but past a certain point his legs just… refuse to support him. 

Billy sits on the sidewalk and laughs. He can’t help it. It’s a desperate little giggle that starts deep in his chest and kicks all the way up to a cackle, right there in the middle of Hawkins. Not that it even fucking matters -- People will hear him, see him. So what? They might call the cops on him. They’ll push him around, realise he can’t use his goddamn legs and shove him into their cop car and then what, put him in a cell. It might be nice. He’d have a place to stay. No one would yell at him in the police station, kick his ass for being gone since July of last year. Nobody would come pick him up, only to let him know that he owed them. Nobody would call him a pussy when they saw that his eyes were red, damp from crying, all alone in the middle of a sidewalk.

He tries to breathe again. It’s hard. 


	2. two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mention some streets in this chapter, so if you want to look at them too, here is a [little map of Hawkins](https://rossonl.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/hawkins80sc-2.png), Indiana. Here's [the wordpress page](https://rossonl.wordpress.com/2018/12/19/the-location-and-map-of-hawkins-finally-revealed/) that I lifted it off of. I definitely recommend giving it a skim at least, since it talks about where Hawkins is located within Indiana as well. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!

Steve’s not in love with his video store job, but it’s doing what he needs it to do. He gets a little bit of an income, gets to spend about eight hours a day with someone who won’t launch into a tirade about him making something of himself. He gets a free film rental every week (which Dustin loves, since he can easily bully Steve into renting something super nerdy). If one of them distracts Kevin long enough, he and Robin can get away with not paying for snacks before they step out back for their lunches. 

Steve knows that he has to do something else, eventually. Unlike what his parents think (and his father says out loud, more often than not), he understands that he’s got to go to college eventually, find a good-paying job. He knows this, but he also wants to take his time. What his parents don’t get -- what his parents don’t  _ know _ , really -- is that he likes the work. He enjoys something like this, something low pressure. It’s not life or death. He’s not holding the future in his hands, his or anyone else’s. The worst he can do is put a movie in the wrong case, but he’s only done that a couple of times and the world didn’t end. He likes it, that the world doesn’t end. That no one’s in danger. 

Steve’s decided that next year, maybe in January when the new semester starts, he’s going to take some classes. Retake some high school courses he didn’t do so well in, maybe find a night school. He’ll apply to some local colleges, some trade schools further away. But he has time. He hangs with Dustin and Mike and Lucas, listens to them whine about their long distance relationships until he pops his free rental into the VHS and they all simmer down. He takes Nancy out sometimes on Friday nights when she’s in town. He smokes weed with Robin at the quarry, and they talk about girls. He writes letters to the Byers’ and to El, and sometimes they write back. He writes letters to Nancy, just for fun. He writes letters to Max. He never sends them.

Steve likes to think that he’s okay, or at least that he’s doing better. July of 1985, he tells himself very often, was a long time ago. Will and El are far from Hawkins, so they’re safe. The portal is closed. Should be closed for good. If something decides to sneak back out, he'll get a call from Eleven, or get radioed by one of the kids. He tells himself this every time he tries to sleep, as he lays on his back in the dark, straining to make sure he doesn't hear shrieks in the night.

Sometimes, though, telling himself isn't enough. He still hasn't gotten rid of his nail bat, so sometimes on a night when he can't fall asleep or when he can’t stay asleep (he wakes up again, again, again) he goes on patrols. He takes the beemer around Hawkins, drives slow, double checks all the shadows. He'll stop the car if he hears something or sees something shift in the darkness. Many times, he's startled a racoon or a stray cat out of its hiding place. 

This night is one of those nights. Nancy hadn't been able to make it to the movies and Robin had some family thing, so Steve had been alone probably a little more than was good for him. He had ended up on his back in bed for what felt like hours, hypervigilant and wound tight as a spring. 

So Steve driving down a side street in the sketchier part of Hawkins isn't exactly unusual for him. Over the past half a year, he's divided up the city in his head. Steve imagines the little spit of a town and its surrounding farmlands in a three by three grid. He'll get through two squares a week, when he's doing well. He'll see the whole city in under forty-eight hours when things feel wrong.

Tonight's patrol takes Steve north of Randolph Way, just between Prospect and Loch Nora. It's maybe an hour and a half in, just after he's shone his headlights between all the factories, that he sees something. He's just cruising down a little residential street, and Steve's stomach flips. There’s a shadow within a shadow, something wide hunched at the base of a tree. It's a bit too big to be a racoon.

Steve pumps the brakes and puts his car into park. His bat's in the passenger seat and he doesn't even need to break his eyes from the dark shape as he grabs it. When he steps out of the car, he doesn't even flinch as the sound of the door closing echoes between the mediocre houses. If it's any member of the local nightlife, it’ll get spooked off when Steve gets close enough. If it’s something else? Well… he knows how to handle it. 

“Hey. Hey!” Steve swings his bat as he walks. Hearing his own voice in the night used to freak him out a bit, but it usually sends animals running if they weren’t already spooked by his car door slamming. But this… thing doesn’t run. The shadow shifts a bit, grows taller. Steve readies his bat and braces himself for the way his heart will stop when the thing lets out its blood curdling shriek. 

“Fuck,” the shadow says, and Steve freezes up mid swing. He has an insane flashback to little league practice, where his dad would throw the ball at him and he’d swing and swing as hard as he could, but never hit. Slow pitch, underhand pass, nothing. One of the first of a series of disappointments. 

The shadow speaks again: “Isn’t it past your bedtime, Harrington? Fuck off.”

Steve drops his shoulders, but still holds the bat aloft. His eyes narrow when the person says his name. It’s better for everyone overall that Steve’s meeting a person instead of another interdimensional being. However, when it comes down to it, people can be just as dangerous as monsters. 

“Who’s there!” Steve calls out. Things prowling around at night are never up to any good. “Who are you? Get out here.”

“Didn’t you hear me?” Whoever it is stands up, squares his shoulders for a moment before sagging back into the shadow of the tree. “Fuck  _ off.  _ Christ!”

Steve tightens his jaw, chokes up on the bat. The person sounds angry and Steve’s not taking any chances. “You tell me who you are, I’ll leave you alone. No one should be sneaking around out here.”

“Then what the hell are  _ you  _ doing? Walking around with a fucking… that fucking bat. Huh?” 

Steve takes a step forward before he can stop himself. It’s new, the anger. But who’s this guy, this stranger in the shadows, to question Steve about what  _ he’s _ doing. If he only knew what he’d been through. If he only was aware of what Steve had done, how hard he had worked to help save this little spit of a town. The shit he’d seen, the people that had been  _ lost _ \--

“If anyone’s sneaking, it’s you.” The guy keeps talking. It’s clear he can’t see Steve, can’t see how pissed off he’s getting, ‘cause he  _ keeps talking _ . “Fucking weirdo, walking around looking for someone’s balls to crush.”

Steve gives the shadow the most incredulous look that he can manage. “What the hell, I’m not looking for--” He stops, frowns. It’s an oddly specific motive that the stranger’s assigned to him, and it makes him think. A memory, distant. Specific. A story, really. The kids had told him. From last year, when Steve’s face had been crushed and Max had to-- 

Steve’s mouth gapes for a moment, opening and shutting before he can stutter out the name:

“ _ \--Hargrove _ ?!”


	3. three.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Driving and looking.

It takes Billy a long fucking time to get off his ass and into Harrington’s car, but he does it. 

Once he’s there, he’s kind of afraid that the other boy will want to talk to him, to  _ catch up _ in that weird suburban way Hawkins people have when they haven’t seen one another in more than a month, but Harrington’s quiet. He just drives slow, Billy in the passenger seat, brown paper bag crushed down by his feet. 

At first, Billy thinks he’s taking the scenic route. He drives one way, away from the rest of the city, then loops back up another street back towards the centre of Hawkins. It takes him about five minutes to drive down a stretch of road that usually only took thirty seconds back when Billy had the Camaro, then Steve swings around to go  _ back where he came from _ . 

“What the--” Billy stops and swallows and breathes. “Where are we going?” 

Steve almost-glances at him, doesn’t even give him a fraction of the attention that he’s giving the empty streets around him as he edges forward at a snail’s pace.

“You caught me in the middle of a patrol. I’m gonna finish up, then I’m… we’re going to my house. We’ll go to the police station first thing tomorrow.”

Three things pass through Billy’s head:

One: What the fuck; patrol? and

Two: Finally gonna see the inside of the Harrington mansion. Gonna shit myself with joy. What the hell did I do to deserve this? And, finally:

“Fuck you.” He settles on this one, because it seems the most right. “I didn’t do anything. It’s not a crime to fucking stand around.”

Steve closes his eyes for a beat longer than a blink and sighs. “No,” he agrees. “But where else are you gonna go? Enlighten me, ‘cause I don’t friggin know.”

Billy slumps in the seat. He digs under the collar of his windbreaker to find his hoodie and yanks the hood over his head. He grumbles as Steve coasts down the street. 

It was really fucking weird at first, seeing Harrington again. It wasn’t fair to say that he looked like shit, because so did Billy, but he looked like Billy felt the first time he had had a hangover and Neil had woken him up early for school. In pain, kind of. Tired. A little unfocused, but trying Really Hard to pay attention to what was in front of him. It fucking sucked, because then Harrington made him get in his stupid car, and for a few moments he wouldn’t even take his eyes off of Billy and he was forced to pretend like he didn’t feel like his legs were about to crumple under him at any second. 

He couldn’t blame him, though-- if he was Harrington, he’d keep an eye on himself, too. What else would he do, letting some guy that had beat the shit out of him sit shotgun? It was a miracle that he was even letting Billy into his car, into his house. Billy was lucky that Steve hadn’t just left him on the sidewalk left to call the cops. 

Billy snoozes in the passenger seat, kind of watches Steve do that weird searching thing he’s doing, out the window, down the street. He looks out of his own window for a little bit. Billy’s never seen as much of Hawkins at night that he has now; he’d always sped through these streets, he’d always been driving, and usually away from something. 

“What‘re you looking for?” He asks Steve, kind of sleepily. 

“Nothing.” It comes out of his mouth, automatic, and Billy can’t help but laugh. Steve’s lips form a line of irritation. “What?””

“ _ Nothing _ ,” he mimics. “You’re on a fucking patrol, don’t tell me nothing.” You found me, hiding in the dark, he thinks.

Steve lets out a sharp little breath through his nose, but his expression softens slightly. There’s a moment of silence that’s a little bit long, long enough to think that Steve’s just decided not to reply, but then he speaks. 

“You remember last July?”

Billy remembers last July. It’s forgetting that’s the problem. 

Steve doesn’t talk for a moment. Billy realises he’s supposed to nod or something, so he does.

“That thing. The place it came from. It opened up before, Halloween two years ago. Another time, before that. We closed it, after--” Steve licks his lips. It’s a nervous tic, Billy thinks. “After. After last July. And it’s fine now! Everything’s shut, everything’s safe. But I…” He shrugs, kind of lamely. “...just like making sure.”

He can tell that Steve thinks it sounds stupid. But it doesn’t. It doesn’t at all. 

Billy shrugs down until his knees are snug against the dashboard. He shoves his hands deep in his pockets and drops his head against the window. When he’s not dozing, he thinks about early November, 1984, and how he had hit Steve Harrington over the head with a plate and then didn’t stop. He remembers his own bruised up hands, and the way his stomach had sunk when he saw Harrington’s black eye and bruised mouth the next day. 

Billy studies the shadows a little closer. He wonders what else could be out there, If there’s another creature like the one that invaded him, the one that used him to bring all those people to it, the one that forced him to-- 

He takes a deep breath. Holds it.

He wonders what else could be out there. He wonders what sort of things Steve fought, monsters besides him, Halloween two years ago. He wondered what they had fought the time before that. He wonders if they were worse than the one from last July. He wonders what Steve plans to do if he finds a monster for real. 

Probably get out of the damn car and fight it, Billy realises. He wants to laugh. That’s exactly what Steve had thought he was, a fucking monster. He got out of the car, with that stupid bat, and told him to get out from the shadows. Jesus fucking Christ. 

Billy’s laugh sounds jagged, like a cough. “You’re fucking crazy, Harrington.”

Steve frowns without taking his eyes off the road. 

(He wonders how Billy can tell.)


	4. four.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy and Steve share grilled cheese.

On his way home, Steve searches the darkness harder than he’s ever looked in his whole life. This is definitely thanks to the boy sitting next to him. The boy that everyone thought was dead. 

Steve doesn’t want to look at him. Or, he does, but he  _ can’t _ , not right now, when he should be sorting monsters from the dark. When he should be trying to figure out how Hargrove’s alive and how he got here, not why he looks so skinny and sad. 

When Steve had grouched at Billy enough for him to stumble out of the shadows, he almost didn’t recognise him. He could one hundred percent, safely say that if he had seen Hargrove before he heard him, he would not have known who he was. His hair, for one, was gone. That glorious fuckin do that  _ might _ have come close to putting the Harrington fringe to shame back in ‘85? That was… gone. It was a shock, at first. Inherently depressing, after a while. It was kind of obvious that Billy hadn’t meant to do it himself. It made his ears stick out, look kind of like a baby. He was still handsome. Steve was loathe to admit this, especially when he had still been trying, with Nancy, but Billy had always been handsome. The jawline was still there, the cupid’s bow lips and the long dark lashes. Though he certainly didn’t have the bad boy vibe that he had been so dead set on cultivating before… everything.

The second thing that Steve noticed was that Billy looked… well. Awful. Back in high school, back when he worked at the pool, he had been pretty ripped. Anyone could tell just by looking that he took care of himself. Ate what he was supposed to eat, got his beauty sleep when he could, probably worked out. Even when the… the Mindflayer had first worked its way into his head, somehow, he had looked good. Healthy. All muscles and tan skin and round curls under the towel and long sleeves and sunglasses and hat. But this Billy… the one that Steve’s picked up from the side of a lonely little Hawkins street… This Billy looks sick. He’s pale and looks like he’s dropped maybe like thirty pounds, skinny arms and even his face a little hollow. He looks like he hasn’t slept for days. And yeah, at first Steve wasn’t super excited about having Hargrove sitting shotgun, but when he slunk out of the dark looking like so much shit, he stopped being worried about how likely it was that Billy would shank him and started wondering if he’d even survive the ride home. Maybe he was still dead, just walking around for a bit. Steve’s not really comfortable with either possibility.

In the end, though, Steve wants to  _ take care  _ of Billy, which is weird in and of itself. But the fact that this need is distracting him from making sure that Hawkins is Demogorgon-free makes things even stranger. So Steve doubles down on his searching and tries his best to ignore Billy sitting in the passenger seat. It’s harder than it seems, when he starts to talk. But he doesn’t keep it up for too long and eventually just settles against the window, looking out into the dark but like, a million times less intensely than Steve is. 

When Steve pulls into the driveway, Billy is still and quiet. There’s a brief moment where Steve wonders if maybe Billy just fucking… died in his car. In his sleep, just quietly slipped away. It’s definitely one of the more unsettling thoughts Steve’s had, so he swallows the feeling of sickness and reaches over to gently shake the other boy’s shoulder. 

Billy startles, which is the fastest movement Steve’s seen him make this entire time. 

“Sorry,” he says automatically. When Billy looks at him, he’s surprisingly alert, and when Steve leaves the car it’s a little less to get into his house and a little more to get out from under that sharp blue gaze. 

Steve’s kind of nervous about bringing Hargrove home, even if it’s just for a few hours. The only relief that he’s got is the fact that he’ll be dropping him off at the police station tomorrow morning, and he wouldn’t be able to get that far even if he  _ does _ decide to murder Steve. He’ll keep the nail bat next to his bed, just in case. 

It takes Billy, like,  _ forever _ to get into the house. He picks up this stupid little brown bag that he had put by his feet, unbends himself so carefully before he puts his legs out of the car. He has to hold the top of the door to get up. He kind of makes a face at the few steps that lead to the front of Steve’s house too, like he’s mad they’re there. Steve doesn’t say anything, but he watches Billy until he drops the bag and sags against the wall and tries, tries, fails to pull up his leg, all to untie a shoe and take it off. 

“Forget the shoes. Jesus. Come sit down or something,” Steve knows he sounds angry, but he’s not really sure how to sound anything else right now. Pity would be stupid, and he’s pretty sure if Billy’s not already pissed at him, that would be the fastest way to get him there. “Are you hungry? It’s like… two in the morning, but did you even fucking eat?”

Billy gives him something that’s really close to a dirty look, though he hovers behind Steve when he walks into the kitchen. Steve’s super tempted to put on coffee, but he’s already wired enough with his new house guest. He also would rather Billy be asleep, and coffee is the quickest way to make sure that doesn’t happen. 

Grilled cheese is the fastest thing that Steve can make without fucking it up, so that’s what he cooks up for both of them. Billy manages to sit on one of the bar stools that surrounds the island in the middle of the kitchen, and Steve manages not to say anything stupid or stare when it takes him a solid half a minute to pull himself onto the damn thing. He wonders what happened to Billy, in the year when he was away. 

Steve remembers when everyone had thought Will Byers was dead. Steve hadn’t gone to his funeral, because he hadn’t known Will back then. He’s heard from Dustin, though, that it was a Big Deal. There had been lots of people there. Some popular girl had even showed up, had cried for him and everything. Even Joyce, who hadn’t quite believed Will was dead, had gone, cried. 

Steve had gone to Billy’s funeral. All the kids had gone, for Max. Joyce and Jonathan and Nancy were there, too. Mrs. Wheeler was there, and Billy’s dad and Max’s mom. Steve had expected someone from school, at least. Maybe Tommy H. and Carol. Someone for Billy, not just for his little sister. 

Max had cried so hard, Steve was afraid she’d throw up. Her mom had sniffled a lot and dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. Mr. Hargrove had stood almost as still as a statue, jaw tight, brows furrowed as he stared at Billy’s coffin. 

Steve remembers seeing him after the burial. He had let Max’s mom into the car and walked around to his own door. There was a moment when he stopped, pressed his fingers against his eyelids, sighed. He looked older, tired. A little less terrifying. 

He had moved his family out of Hawkins within the week. 

Steve cuts the sandwiches into halves on the diagonal, but it doesn’t really matter. Billy eats his entire sandwich in the time it takes Steve to get down three bites, so he gives his untouched half to Billy and starts making another grilled cheese. 

In the end, Billy puts away two and a half sandwiches and looks like he’s about to drop dead, so Steve installs him in one of the guest rooms on the main floor. He at least has the presence of mind to finally toe off his sneakers and put that stupid bag down before he collapses into bed, but he lies right on top of the comforter with his hood pulled up. He’s still wearing his stupid windbreaker and the old scrubs. 

“Christ, Hargrove,” Steve wants to laugh, but Billy doesn’t even grunt back, he’s so out of it already. 

Steve sighs deep. Turns off the light. Closes the door.


	5. five.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy thinks about the lab.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple new tags/warnings, so give them a look please! Nothing huge, but better safe than sorry.

When Billy had first woken up in the hospital room, he had thought he was in hell. 

He wasn’t sure, really, if that was at all a commentary on how much he hated hospitals, but he knew for sure it had something to do with how much he hurt. His entire body felt like it had been fucked up and spit out, and all the hangovers he’d ever had couldn’t hold a candle to how much his head felt like it was being cracked open from the inside. 

Even then, that didn’t compare to the wave of sick he felt when he remembered what he had done. He had fucking….  _ slugged  _ Max. Those other kids, her friends. He had hurt them too. There had been people, so many people. Heather Holloway, her parents.  _ Christ _ . Townspeople who he hadn’t known, had only seen around if anything, whose names he only knew because he had seen a bunch of stuff-- like a flash, the rolodex of their memories before the Magnatroph had swallowed up their minds. 

Magnatroph. That’s what Doctor Owens had called it, how he referred to the creature when he spoke to Billy after he had woken up. He said a bunch of shit that Billy already knew, said it like he was happy about it. Owens had told Billy that he was the only one whose mind the Magnatroph had infiltrated that had been left alive. They’d had another example of this symbiosis-- that’s what Owens had said,  _ symbiosis _ , and he’d started explaining the word to Billy like he hadn’t just won the Hawkins High School Junior Science Award back in June, thanks very much-- another example of the symbiosis before, but that was only a single example, and there had been only one host during that event. Owens seemed amazed that Billy-- and, retroactively, the other host --had lived, when so many others had died. 

Billy didn’t care about the other host. He didn’t care that he had lived. He was pretty sure that he deserved to be dead and he deserved to be in Hell for everything he had done. So when they shaved off his hair and stuck the electrodes to his head, he said nothing. When they asked him to think about the Magnatroph, to imagine the connection he had with all the other victims, he did what they wanted. He imagined the look in Heather’s eyes when he told her “ _ just stay very still _ ,” remembered the way that the Magnatroph felt, the bloom of pride and victory from the other, bigger mind when all Billy felt was despair. He remembered how he had fought and failed over and over again, allowing the Magnatroph to control him, to use him to help, to find people to bring down to the basement of that awful, dark steel mill.

“Do you remember what it felt like,” Owens had asked him once, “when it consumed another mind?” 

It had felt like opening his eyes in the morning. It had felt like cresting that first wave when he was young, all seven feet. It had felt like taking his first breath after a dive, breaking the surface of the water, breathing crisp salt air. It felt like seeing his mom after a long, long day of school. It felt like free pizza after a basketball game, like pasta after a run, like tasting steak for the first time, medium rare. 

It had felt like his mother telling him goodbye, knowing he wouldn’t ever see her, never again. It had felt like looking at himself in the mirror after he’d been hit hard enough to bleed for the first time. It had felt like waking up in the hospital after Neil had caught him kissing Isaiah Jackson in his room: alone, in pain, ashamed, small. It had felt like hitting someone, watching himself from far away: splitting his knuckles, spraining his wrist, hitting Steve over and over, watching his expression turn from shock to fear to nothingness and not being able to  _ stop _ .

“Yeah,” Billy said. It was true. He remembered the people of Hawkins, dying. He remembered the Magnatroph’s joy, too, and that had been even worse.

“Tell me how it felt,” Owens said, eyes bright like he was hungry.

And Billy couldn’t. He couldn’t. So Owens had them shave his hair down again, had them put the electrodes back. Sometimes they’d give him something to drink, something that tasted like chemicals. Or they’d have him hold out his arm and put a needle in his skin, and when he woke up next his gums bled and his head ached and Owens would know everything he needed to know.

The scientists were never mean to Billy. Owens never forced him to do anything he didn’t want to do. And yeah, sometimes the things they did hurt. They would try to make his body remember the powers it had when the Magnatroph was with him, try to see what they could activate by pushing him. Sometimes they'd put him in a cold place, or a place that was hot, like the sauna that his step-sister and her friends had trapped him when the Magnatroph was in his head. There were tests to see how long he could hold his breath under water, how long he could stay conscious in a vacuum. 

They made him sick. They put things in him: injections. Pills. Once he felt awful, they took things out of him. They took his blood, before and after the illnesses, to see what had changed in him. Sometimes, they put blood in him too.

Owens never told Billy what they learned, but he always let him know that he had done well. One small step, he'd tell him, one great leap for mankind. 

Billy didn't care about science, not really. But maybe, somehow, it could make up (just a little bit) for all the people he had killed. So what if he had nightmares? So what if he woke up screaming, and his body shook so hard that the night nurses had to hold him down to give him his sedative? So what if his heart beat so fast that he couldn't even stay inside his own head, had to watch from far away as he hit and hit and hit whatever he could reach and broke his knuckles all over again?

They always put him back together the best that they could. They took care of his heatstroke when it happened, his hypothermia. They pumped all the water out of his lungs. They were good to him, even when he was hurt because of his own mistake. They taped his fingers when he fucked them up. Even way back, back in July when they had found him, they put him under until he could heal. This was why, Owens had told him, his muscles had shrunken away. Why his legs shook when he tried to stand, and why he had to crawl to the bathroom. When he coughed in the morning, inhales shallow and chest tight, they put a mask on him and had him breathe deep. Hold it. Let it out real slow. Again. Again. Until his lungs stopped aching. Until pain stopped clawing out of his chest. 

When he wakes up, Billy doesn't see the bars of the hospital bed or hear the beep of the machines. He doesn't see the black out curtains or the fluorescent light that creeps in under the door. He doesn't hear the click click click of the nurses' shoes, the murmuring of Dr. Owens and his assistants in the hallway. He wakes up in a real bed. The walls are cream and sun comes through the windows. He hears birds, and the silence of a house where everyone else is asleep. He doesn't hurt, and he can breathe okay. 

Billy knows he's not in hell. He's in Steve Harrington's house, waking up in a guest room on the main floor. He's alive.

He doesn't deserve it.


	6. six.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve makes a mistake.

Steve finds Billy's little paper bag by the front door.

He’s kind of curious, kind of doesn’t give a shit. He’s still pretty strung out and he’s only eaten half of a grilled cheese, so he’s not nearly full enough for a food coma. He kind of wishes he had made coffee despite the time of night. Sometimes the warm cancelled out the caffeine and if he got into bed right away, there’d be a ten minute window where he could drop right off. So what if he woke up in an hour and a half, shaky and wired? It’s an hour and a half more sleep than he would’ve gotten, just roaming around the house. 

He doesn’t make coffee. He goes through Billy’s stuff instead.

It’s not interesting. If anything, it’s a little sad. There’s a business card, and Steve recognises the name of the family that had moved into Hawkins a while back. There’s a phone number on the back of the card and a piece of paper with more phone numbers on that, too. There’s an inhaler. Steve remembers, back when he was an asshole, that there was a kid with an inhaler that he and Tommy used to bully. They’d make fun of him and Tommy would hold him still when Steve blew smoke in his face. The kid would always cough. 

There are jeans in the bag, and Steve wonders why Billy’s wearing scrubs until he takes out the pants and he sees they’re stained with blood. There’s this ripped up thing that might have been white and is probably more blood than material, and it takes a while for Steve to see that it’s an undershirt. 

Starcourt mall crawls up from inside Steve’s memories. Fireworks, the smell of rot and blood. Tears. Billy, left in a burning car. Billy, writhing in pain as they worked to destroy the Mindflayer, flinging fireworks as it howled. Billy, dying to save Eleven. Max, screaming and screaming. Billy lying so, so still. 

Steve stuffs the clothes back into the bag, careless. Brown paper rips down the side.

“Fuck,” he says. He tries again, taking the clothes back out, folding them up and putting them in gently, but the damage is already done. 

He wonders if Billy will be mad at him, even though it’s only a dumb paper bag. You could get them for free at the local grocery store. Steve’s stomach sinks, though, when he thinks that maybe the bag-- and the things inside it-- were all the things that Billy had. 

It made sense. His dad and mom and sister were long gone. There was no reason for them to save any of his stuff, since they honest-to-god thought he was dead.  _ Everyone  _ had thought he was dead. Unlike Will, there hadn’t even been a tiny spark of hope, a single person holding on for him, to the off chance he might still be around.

So, in the morning, Steve leaves the house to get another paper bag, a new one to replace the one that he ripped. 

It’s dumb, he realises about halfway through. Jesus fucking  _ Christ _ , it’s so dumb. Like, what’s even the point. So instead of driving home with  _ one fucking empty paper bag, Jesus _ , he stops downtown and gets Billy some  _ real fucking clothes _ . 

Or, as real as they could be. Steve doesn’t know Billy’s size, really, and he doesn’t know what he likes. Or… he has an okay idea of what he likes. Denim, leather jackets, dress shirts that don’t button up and jeans that hug his ass. But he’s in no way sure of Billy’s size, and he should have checked the tag on those gross jeans that he left in the paper bag at home, and  _ fuck _ . 

So Steve buys fucking… sweatpants. One in grey, and one in blue, kind of like denim. They’re comfortable, soft on the inside, and he figures that Billy liked sports well enough when he was at school for sweatpants to be something that he may have owned. He gets some t-shirts, some his own size and some a size up, in white and black. He buys socks and underwear, nothing special. He buys a denim jacket. 

It’s when he’s buying  _ earrings _ that he catches himself. It’s a certain kind of strange to buy jewellery for another boy, even if you found him alone and sad under a tree in the middle of the night. Steve has a few pairs of them in his hands: some studs, a couple that are silver and dangly. He puts them down on his way to the checkout. He takes two steps and he curses and he goes back to get them them and he grumbles to himself all the way to the cash register. 

By the time Steve gets home, Billy is awake. He never got up to close the guest room door, so Steve sees him in the bed still. He’s gotten under the sheets, and his windbreaker and hoodie and scrub top are in a pile on the floor. His eyes are open, though, and Steve thinks briefly of Dustin veering off from the topic of conversation one night to talk about Tews, how he just sometimes stared at the wall, how he wondered if he was looking into the upside down. Steve’s not entirely sure that Billy isn’t. 

Steve clears his throat and knocks on the open door, and Billy startles. It looks like it takes him a second to realise where he is, and Steve frowns a little and watches him until Billy frowns right back.

"Fuck do you want," Billy grinds out. His voice is raspy with sleep. 

Steve takes a step back out of the room. He remembers he probably shouldn't be staring at him, so he looks at the wall above his head instead. But then he remembers that this is  _ his  _ house, so he takes a couple steps back into the room, crosses his arms and stands square. Looks Billy straight in the eyes. 

"What do you want for breakfast?" He can make eggs, pancakes. Grilled cheese. 

"Why," Billy grumbles, "You don't need to feed me before you dump me with the cops." 

Steve sighs. "We don't have to do that right away."

Billy scoffs and sits himself up. It takes a while. Steve is simultaneously horrified and amazed when he sees the scars, ugly and pale, upraised starbursts across Billy's lifeguard-smooth skin.

"Take a picture, Harrington," Billy gripes, the same moment Steve asks, "Is that from the--"

Billy watches Steve for a while, then makes a face like he had let a pill dissolve in his mouth. "Magnatroph," he says, and looks at his knees. He’s still wearing the scrub pants.

"What?" Steve asks. He’s mostly surprised that Billy answered at all.

"The monster. In the mall. The Magnatroph."

Steve's not sure what Billy means for a while, but then it clicks. 

"Oh! The Mindflayer."

"What?" 

"That's what the kids called it."

Billy narrows his eyes, and looks at Steve out of the side of them. 

"That's a stupid name."

Steve rolls his eyes. He eventually settles on pancakes. 

Billy doesn't bring up being dropped off at the police station again. This is a relief to Steve, because he doesn't know how to say 'I don’t want to make you leave yet because I decided to buy you a pile of clothes instead.' Billy eats the pancakes that Steve makes for him without a word, and it’s weird when he sits quietly and waits for Steve to eat his too. 

"Is there a shower?" 

Steve's putting his baking tools and their dirty dishes in the sink when he hears Billy ask the question, and he drops the plates right onto the pan. It's… frankly, fucking weird. Hearing him ask a question like he wants to know if there’s a shower in the Harrington house and isn’t just making sure he’s allowed to use it, him waiting for Steve to answer. Steve is almost one hundred percent sure that he'd rather hear Billy cuss at him again than ask a question that way. If he cussed him out or shoved him or something, it would mean he was doing okay, kind of. He thinks that if Billy punched him in the face the way he is now, it wouldn't even hurt that bad.

"Yeah," Steve says, "Sure. Lemme just…" he gestures towards the dishes and Billy hovers a bit before disappearing into the guest room. 

When Steve finishes the dishes, he takes Billy up to the second floor. He kind of feels bad, wants to apologize for the first floor bathroom only having a toilet, but he doesn't say anything. He climbs the stairs and tries not to look like he's waiting for Billy to catch up.

Billy's laugh is empty, breathless once he gets to the top of the stairs. He pants, clinging to the railing. “This is a real fucking mansion you’ve got here, Harrington. Some poor pieces of shit only have one story houses you know. Jesus.” 

Steve echoes the laugh, and it's awkward because it's not even his, but then he shows Billy the towels and tells him that he'll put some clothes in the bathroom for him. 

Steve hears the water start to run as he unpacks the clothes he had bought for Billy. He's careful, makes sure he takes all of the tags off. He's not sure how Billy would feel about things being bought for him brand new, so he kind of roughs everything up, re-folds them kind of sloppy with a few wrinkles in them, like he had just taken them out of his own drawers.

It’ll have to do.


	7. seven.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy takes a shower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, guys! I’m so sorry. I was swamped with work and totally forgot to upload chapter seven last night! I had a thing due Wednesday afternoon and another thing due this morning and we have a presentation this afternoon so uhhhhhh wish me luck? Haha

Billy turns the water on as hot as he can take it. The water at the labs had never run as hot as the water at the Harrington household, and between that and the queen bed and the pancakes for breakfast, Billy feels like he's in a hotel. On vacation. He's not looking forward to when Steve decides he's done with Billy and drops him off with the cops.

He soaks up all the time he can. He angles the shower head so he can put his forehead against the wall and have the hot stream trickling over his neck and down his back. When he feels his legs trembling, he adjusts it so that when he sits, he's still engulfed by the spray. 

He's pretty sure he falls asleep at one point. He startles kind of bad when the bathroom door opens. But it's just Steve, bringing in the clothes he said he'd bring. Steve tells him he has work, and Billy wonders if he might have wanted to take a shower too. But Billy pushes that thought aside, clings to his time. Steve has all the time in the world to take a shower. If Billy was back at the lab, an orderly would have come to help him out and get him dressed ages ago. Plus, he’s going to have to go to the police station sooner or later, and he’s sure there won’t be hot showers there. The water’s perfect and no one is asking him to get out, so he stays under the spray as long as he can. 

So Steve comes, and he goes, and he comes again to tell Billy that he's leaving, and he's welcome to eat food from the fridge and watch the TV. He hovers a bit, and Billy mentally prepares himself to have to get out of the shower, but then Steve says that his mom's alcohol stash is under his parents' bed and as long as he doesn't fuck with anything too much and doesn't touch the good stuff and he doesn't get totally trashed, he’s okay to partake. Steve stands quietly for more than a little while, and when he closes the door behind him Billy wonders if he should have said ‘thank you.’

The water eventually turns to ice, and Billy shivers in the tub for a few minutes until he gathers the strength to turn off the tap. He gets out, sits on the toilet seat while he dries himself off, and goes through the clothes that Steve left for him. 

None of these, Billy decides, are things Steve Harrington wears. It had only been a couple years ago that Billy had seen him at school, but he remembers enough to know that the things in a pile before him don’t really make sense with the aesthetic that he flaunted. It's all sweatpants and t-shirts, and there's a denim jacket which makes no sense, and-- 

Billy picks up the earrings and things click. Harrington _ bought _ this shit. For him. Bought him a fucking jacket. And his paper bag, too, was ripped, when he went to take his inhaler this morning, so fucking _ Harrington _ had been in his stuff, snooping around. Thought the clothes he was wearing were shit, knew he didn't have anything else to change into. Would rather buy brand new clothes than let Billy borrow a fucking shirt.

Billy stands up and throws everything at the mirror, right into the reflection of his own face. Socks and underwear drop in the sink and he hears metal hitting ceramic. Sweatpants and t-shirts hit the ground and he's pretty sure an earring finds its way down the drain. 

He sees himself. Hospital-cropped hair. Stubble on his jaw and chin and upper lip. Cheeks gaunt like he hadn't been fed for weeks. Almost sickly pale. Thin arms. Frail body, bony. He looked like he hadn't slept. Weak and thin and ugly. No wonder Steve hadn’t kicked him out yet; if Billy had come across someone looking like he did, he’d think he was pathetic.

"_Fuck_!" He yells. There's a little trashcan next to the toilet, and he spins fast to kick it over. Crumpled pieces of kleenex spill onto the floor. There's a toilet brush and toilet plunger and he kicks those over too. He catches himself in the mirror again, angry. "_Fuck you_!" He yells, and he hits the glass with a closed fist.

It doesn't break, but Billy feels something slide and _ pop _ in his hand. He hears himself yelling, and he's hitting the mirror and tearing the shower curtain down and kicking the rug out of place. He doesn't stop, not until his legs shake and they drop him, right in the middle of the floor. He pulls his knees close and he sobs. 

He feels stupid, when he's finished. Whether or not his dad was there to shame him, whether or not the nurses ignored him, no matter how tight his mom would hold him or how many times she said “_it’s okay, baby_,” he'd always felt stupid when he’d cried. He doesn't feel great when he looks around and sees that he's fucked up Harrington's bathroom, either. The mirror's okay, thank god. The shower curtain will need to be replaced. Billy crawls around and shifts things until they look like they did before. His hand hurts when he moves it.

Billy wars with himself when he looks at the pile of clothes. Eventually, he pulls on the underwear with the least amount of sink water on them, puts on a pair of socks. He realises really quickly that Steve took his scrubs and windbreaker, and he has to close his eyes and take a deep breath (hold, hold, let it out slow) before doing anything else. He feels almost like he's betraying himself when he slips into the sweatpants, but the inside is surprisingly soft on his skin and feels especially good after shivering in the shower and sitting down on the cold tile floor. He puts a white t-shirt on. Everything else he folds up again (denim jacket on the bottom) and leaves them in a pile on the toilet seat.

Once he finds Steve's parents' room, it's hard to figure out what 'the good stuff' is. Billy's pretty sure that every bottle is worth more than his own life, so he takes the two ugliest whiskeys and sits with them downstairs in front of the television. Maybe he'll take a couple shots, get buzzed. Watch something funny. See if television's changed any in the last fifteen months.

By the time Harrington comes home, Billy's significantly more than a little buzzed. His empty stomach and thin frame yield him easily to the alcohol, and he frowns messily at Steve when he walks into the room. 

"Fuck you," Billy says, in lieu of a greeting, and Steve sighs heavily. 

"Did you get anything to eat?" His eyes flicker to the half empty bottle on the couch. Billy laughs at him. 

"You bought me fucking _ clothes_, Harrington. Who the fuck do you think you are?" Billy stands and he feels himself sway. “I’m not your _ bitch_. You don’t have to take care of me.”

Steve narrows his eyes at him. "No," he agrees. 

"I mean… fuck you," the inaccuracy of his language heats him up more, and he sweeps the whiskey bottles off of the couch. They thud heavily on the carpet.

"Hey!" Steve yelps, lunging like he's gonna pick them up, and Billy kicks one under the coffee table.

"_You're _the bitch," Billy snarls and Steve glares, scampering after the errant bottle as it spins across the carpet. Billy takes a minute to coordinate himself enough to grab the other bottle from the floor, but he does it. "You bought me clothes even though you're getting rid of me. Even though I beat you up. Smashed your fucking face in, like a piece of shit. Little bitch."

He screws the top off of the bottle in his hand and throws back a shot. Steve bites back a sound of disapproval and Billy fucking cackles. 

"Pour one out for Harrington's goddamn backbone. Jesus!" He upends the bottle and amber liquid splashes on the carpet.

He doesn't expect Steve to move so fast. There's a beat in time that Billy doesn't register and Steve's in his space, pushing him back against the couch and grabbing the bottle right from his hand. The shock is enough that Billy lets him take it.

"Seriously?" Steve looks really pissed. Billy laughs right out loud and Steve's eyes get so dark Billy wonders if he's gonna hit him. He feels himself getting small, like he would for Neil, for the Magnatroph.

"You're a cunt," Billy juts out his chin when he hears his voice waver. He wouldn't care if Steve _ did _hit him.

Steve says "Shut the fuck up," instead. He sounds ridiculously tired. He picks up the remote and turns off the TV and ignores Billy's shout of protest. 

“Drink some fucking water,” Steve orders him. He’s walking out of the room, turning off the light and taking the whiskey with him. “Go to bed.” 

Billy follows him as best he can, wobbly. He slides a hand along the wall for support. “How ‘bout you call the fucking cops? They have beds in the drunk tank.” 

Steve sighs. He puts bread in the toaster, pushes the lever down. “You can sleep it off here, it’s not a big deal.” The way he says it, like he’s doing it for Billy’s sake, makes his teeth grit, way in the back. 

“You’re not doing me any goddamn favours,” Billy growls. Steve sighs again and lets the sink run a little before filling up a glass with water. 

Billy gives Steve a dirty look when he sets the glass down in front of him. Steve doesn’t bother to look at him, or reply. He puts buttered toast in front of Billy and leaves the room when he curses again.


	8. eight.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve thinks about Starcourt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started reading one of the Stranger Things novels (Runaway Max) so I could grab some intel re: Billy, and there are some good insights in there. Unfortunately, there are also some issues with time (such as Billy and Max only meeting each other in April, plus it having been Max's fault they left Cali) and so it has to be considered a particularly helpful AU at points. Plus they live in San Diego in there and I already decided they lived in Santa Monica, so OF COURSE I can't change that. 
> 
> So I guess this is me officially saying that I am not using any of the book stuff for this fic, just the Netflix series material. If, though, I grab some intel from the books that doesn't directly contradict the series, or else inspires me otherwise, I'll make note of it. 
> 
> The one thing that I am kind of miffed about is that the Hargroves left town really quickly in this story and that did not happen in the series. They were in Hawkins in October to say goodbye to El and Will. That's 100% on me. I am considering changing it but I'm not totally sure if that needs to be changed, really.

It usually takes about a week or so for Steve’s lack of sleep to catch up with him. It doesn’t help that Billy’s been in his house for the past few days. Steve just can’t bring himself to say ‘we need to go to the police station’ and watch him shuffle into his car with that stupid brown paper bag. Not even after they’d had that weird screaming match, and Steve had picked a new hiding place for his mom’s alcohol. He can’t help it-- he feels _ bad _ for Billy. 

He tells himself it could have been worse. He could have fought Steve, or broken shit. Instead he just called him names and got the carpet wet and looked pissed off over toast. The carpet hadn’t even stained, after Steve cleaned it up. He counts himself lucky. Billy’s done way worse. He’d-- how had he said it? _ Smashed your fucking face in, like a piece of shit_. Well. At least he owned up to it.

After all the yelling, Billy hadn’t really done much. He’d stayed in the guest room most of the time, come out more often than not when Steve knocked and said there was food. He didn’t do too much while Steve was at work, though he could sometimes see evidence of him having been around the house. The pile of t-shirts and underwear in the upstairs bathroom grew a little smaller every day, and sometimes the colour of the pair of sweatpants would change. Everything else in the house almost seemed freakishly immaculate, though, like no one else was there when Steve was away. The contents of the fridge, of the cupboards never changed, though on occasion there would be a coffee mug drying in the rack next to the sink. He wouldn’t have guessed that Billy Hargrove would have turned out to be such a quiet and neat house guest. 

Steve’s shift at Family Video that day had been unusually rough: He had totally forgotten that Robin was out of town and Kevin had some sort of family thing to leave early for, so he had an extra half shift lined up that had completely blindsided him. He had closed all by himself, and then he came home, and as soon as he walks through the front door he shuffles over to the couch without turning on the lights and is out before his body hits the cushions. 

When Steve starts to wake up, it’s to the sound of his own sobs, his heartbeat in his ears. It’s dark, and he’s surprised that he had hit the couch, had let himself fall asleep without turning a light on. He knows how he is in the dark. The dark makes him stupid, afraid. The dark make it so his memories feel real, send shivers down his spine. He can feel himself shaking, hear the stupid little sounds he makes. It’s not new and he should know better. The only thing different is that there’s a hand on his shoulder, and he feels its warmth through the sleeve of his Family Video polo shirt.

When Steve dreams, usually, he dreams of faceless slick-skinned monsters whose mouths open into rows upon rows of shark sharp teeth. He dreams of festering underground tunnels, air thick with spores, tentacles searching for victims to capture and devour. He dreams of kids, little kids and kids his age, disappearing. Possessed. Kids his age dying. Giving themselves up for a girl they don’t even know, for another kid who should never have ever been in danger.

The grip on his shoulder grows tighter. 

“Harrington,” the grip says, “What’s wrong with you?”

He had stood on the second floor of Starcourt Mall. He had stood and watched, and he had been out of fireworks, and he had done _ nothing_. 

“Billy,” he whimpers. “Billy, Billy.”

“Oh. Fuck,” Billy says. 

Steve reaches up to his shoulder, finds the hand and holds it, probably a little too tight. “‘M sorry,” he says, and he sounds a little slurred. He tries again: “I’m sorry.”

Steve can hear Billy shifting around in the dark. If he focuses very hard, he sees him move from crouching over him to sitting on the carpet. “It’s okay,” Billy huffs as he drops down. This is the first time that he and Steve have said more than two words to each other in like, four days. “I… um. Sorry I called you a cunt.”

Steve makes a sound, something urgent and a little too loud for the night. “No, it’s not. It’s not okay. I ran out of fireworks. I let the Mindflayer--” he reaches across, past the hand, grabs Billy’s wrist. “My aim was _ shit_.”

Billy laughs. It’s a little condescending, like he just heard a stupid joke and wants to make Steve feel better about telling it. “It’s okay,” he says again. Steve can feel him rubbing his shoulder, like he wants to put him back to sleep. “It’s whatever, okay?”

Steve remembers that Billy stopped screaming when the Mindflayer hit him the last time, right in the middle of the chest. When the creature had dropped him, there was blood all over his shirt. Only the straps were white, the rest of it was all red. He hadn’t made a sound when he had fallen, and his last words to Max were ‘_I’m sorry_.’

“I’m sorry,” Steve says too. He’s not sure he can say it enough. “We should’ve saved you.” They had saved Will. They had saved Eleven, and she had saved them over and over again. It wasn’t fair. It hadn’t been fair.

Billy shifts again, and Steve’s heart drops when he pulls his hand away. “It’s whatever, Harrington.” The hand’s back then, heavy on his head, and Steve’s breath comes out shaky when the hand pushes through his hair.

Steve thinks about being alone in his house, this big empty thing. Steve thinks about waking himself up from a nightmare instead, shouting himself awake. He thinks about being paralyzed in the dark: too afraid to be alone in the night, too afraid to move, to get up, to turn on a light for himself.

“You don’t have to go to the police station,” He tells Billy. Maybe he will turn on the light for Steve, before he goes back to his room. “Not if you don’t want to.”

There’s a sigh. The rhythm of Billy’s hand stutters a bit as he shrugs. “It’s fine. I shouldn’t‘ve complained about getting out of your hair.”

“I thought they could help,” Steve says. It sounds a little bit like begging.

“The fuck do you think I need help with?”

He says it with an edge, and it makes Steve think of the Billy from a few nights ago, the one who was pissed that Steve bought him clothes. The one who poured whiskey into the carpet. But then there’s this Billy too, who woke him up from his nightmare. Who’s sitting on that same carpet, to make sure he’s okay. “Stay. Stay. I’m sorry. I’ll fix things.”

“Look. Harrington--” Billy sighs. Steve can imagine him rubbing his face with his free hand. There are probably a million things he doesn’t say. But in the end, it’s what he does say that’s important: “Jesus. Fucking Christ. Okay. Fuck. Okay.”

When Steve wakes up again, it’s morning. Billy is asleep, sitting on the floor. His head is on the arm rest and his hand is in Steve’s hair.


	9. nine.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy eats pizza.

Billy makes himself useful. 

There’s not a lot he can do, not really. The Harrington’s house is huge and mostly empty, and Steve and Billy are quiet, clean. They tip toe around each other. Billy more so than Steve-- Steve’s used to keeping the house clean, Harrington pristine, just the way that his parents left it when they went away. Billy’s a little more… uptight. He’s still not over Steve telling him he could stay, and he worries he’ll change his mind. 

So Billy makes himself useful. As useful as he can, really. Sometimes, if Steve has to rush out for work and leaves a coffee mug on the counter, Billy washes it. He finds the cleaning supplies in the bathroom and scrubs things down, even though they’re already clean. Sometimes he grabs a cloth and wipes the dust off of things that the Harringtons probably never use: the dining room table. The tops of the dressers and the headboard in the other guest room. 

Steve always says goodbye to Billy before he leaves for work. He tells him to eat something, okay? And he tells him what time he will be back. Billy’s usually in the shower, or in his room all curled up under the blankets, and sometimes he sees Steve. He always says nothing. 

He usually doesn’t eat once Steve goes. It doesn’t feel right, leaving his room and going through Harrington’s stuff. It was hard enough, going into his mother’s room to get alcohol, and almost even shittier when he had checked again to find that Steve had moved everything. Hid it from him. Honestly though, he couldn’t be trusted-- and even despite that, Steve’s letting him stay. Which is part of the reason why he’s trying to be a little less dead weight. 

So he starts with the cleaning. It’s just… something he can do without worrying he’s gonna fuck it up. And he’s pretty sure Steve doesn’t notice. That’s okay, though. He kind of… doesn’t want him to? It would be weird if he did, weird if he… _ thanked _ him, or told him that he didn’t have to or something. Billy could think of few things more embarrassing than insisting that it was okay, that he _ wanted _to clean Harrington’s stupid giant house. 

It’s when he gets caught up in one of his cleaning rounds that Harrington surprises him in the upstairs bathroom. 

“Hargrove?” Steve says, and Billy drops the sponge he’s using right into the bottom of the bathtub. Billy snaps out a “What?” and immediately feels bad when Steve takes a step backwards. 

“Nothing,” Harrington says quickly, and he steps forward, reclaims the space. “I’m getting pizza. What do you like on yours?”

“Whatever’s good,” Billy picks up the sponge. 

“Yeah,” and Steve kind of laughs a bit-- Billy can hear the smile in his voice. He doesn’t understand why-- “But what do you _ like_.”

Billy likes roasted red pepper and feta and bacon, and tomatoes -- fresh or sun-dried --depending on the place that he orders from. He’ll eat onions and basil and extra garlic, and mushrooms if they’re chopped small enough. Olives are too salty. He’s picked off-- been forced to eat-- a lot of olives. 

“Pepperoni’s fine,” he says. 

There’s a beat of silence and Billy wonders if he’s about to be challenged for lying about pizza toppings, but then Steve says “Okay,” and he’s left alone in the bathroom.

Pizza is nice. Billy’s forgotten just how _ nice _ pizza can be. Steve had ordered a couple of large pepperonis and brought them upstairs into his room. “It’s closer,” he had told Billy, and though the TV there wasn’t as great as the one downstairs, Billy didn’t have to mess with the steps. 

So it’s quiet. They eat pizza together in silence, watching the NBC movie and then Tonight Show and then David Letterman. Billy’s eyes start closing midway through Letterman. He does a series of long blinks as he heads inexorably towards sleep. One: Steve, taking the pizza boxes out of the room. Two: Steve, turning on the bedside lamp, turning off the TV. Three: There’s a blanket over him, and Steve’s on the opposite side of the bed, curled and covered up. His hair unruly, his bare shoulders sticking up above the edge of the comforter. 

Billy wakes up-- like, totally wakes up-- to Steve getting dressed. He’s doing up his pants and pulling a shirt on when Billy stretches and says, “What are you up to, Harrington?” and scares the shit out of him. He stumbles into the night stand and Billy laughs before he can stop it. 

“Yeah, yeah. I’m here all week,” Steve says, but it doesn’t sound mean or hurt or anything. Which is good. 

“It’s past your bedtime,” Billy says sagely. And then like, he realises properly that he’s in Steve’s bed. Harrington tucked him in and everything. It’s weird. It’s weird enough that if he had been a little more like he was fifteen months ago, he would have freaked out. 

But he doesn’t feel bad, and he doesn’t feel unsafe. Maybe weird is okay if he doesn’t feel unsafe. 

“I’m going on patrol,” Harrington says, “You can stay here. Be back in a few hours, maybe.”

“I’ll come,” Billy hears himself say, and that’s also weird. There’s a voice, way in the back of his head, that says he should have been pissed, maybe hit Steve for tucking him in. But then Billy remembers ‘_stay_’ and ‘_I’ll fix things_’ and he tries his best to quiet the voice. He wants to fix things, too. 

The night ride through the streets of Hawkins is almost soothing. Maybe ten minutes after they leave it starts to rain, and the water in the sky makes the headlights of the car turn soft in front of them. There’s the hum of the engine, the sound of the wheels against the damp road. Sometimes, when Billy had been little and before his mother left him, they’d drive through the rain. Storms, Neil would always say, were dangerous to drive in. But his mom had liked to live on the edge. She said the rain made her feel centred. 

They don’t find anything that night. Billy wonders if Steve can even see, with the windshield wipers working as aggressively as they are to keep the windows dry. He’s sure that if there even was a monster, it wouldn’t be visible between the drops. But Billy holds the nail bat in his lap, hands it to Steve when the car parks and takes it back when Steve returns from the dark, dripping, relieved. Billy stays dry for the most part, but the walk from car to house does him in. The rain is coming hard, and by the time they reach the foyer, both Billy and Steve are soaked to the skin. 

“Fuck,” Steve says. Billy agrees wholeheartedly. He experiences a moment of terror when Steve crosses his arms and peels his shirt off. He turns his back and shimmies out of his jeans and Billy has to make himself look away. 

“Stay there, okay?” Steve tells him. Billy is acutely aware of the fact that Harrington’s wearing nothing but wet briefs. “I’ll grab you a towel. Don’t drip on my floors, yeah?”

Steve only takes a second, but by the time he returns, Billy’s teeth are chattering. The shock of being soaked is gone, leaving only the chill, and it’s seeped all the way to his bones. He has nothing but skin to protect them. 

“Holy shit,” Steve gets in close, loops the towel over Billy's head. Billy has this vague inkling that he looks like the Virgin Mary. “Can you get-- do you want to come upstairs? Take a fucking shower. Holy shit.”

“What about you?” Billy asks him. He takes the towel and before he can get nervous about how close they’re standing, Steve steps back. 

“I'm fine,” Harrington says. “And just… just take your shoes off if you can, okay? Don’t worry too much. It’s just water.”

The shower is nice. He wonders if he should mention to Steve, how nice it is to take a shower at the Harrington’s. This instance of showering is particularly nice, with the way it eases the chill out of his core. 

When he’s warm and dried and dressed (he pulls his ill-fitting hoodie over his t-shirt, rubs his legs together against the softness in his sweatpants), he starts to head downstairs, to bed. Steve catches him there, at the top of the steps. He stops him with a _ Hey_. Billy turns to look, foot on the top step. 

“You don’t have to go all the way back down there,” He tilts his head towards his bedroom door. “Stay here. It’s no big deal.”

Billy wakes up to Steve getting dressed. He’s doing up his pants and pulling a shirt on when he sees Billy’s up, gives him a crooked half smile. He tells him to eat something, okay? And he tells him what time he should be back. And he says goodbye as he leaves for work.

“Bye,” Billy says, and he curls under the covers.


	10. ten.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve writes a letter.

Steve’s always in the process of writing a letter.

He writes to the Byers. Like, a lot. The issue is that he doesn’t really know what to write, but he also doesn’t want Joyce to worry about him so much that she calls, so he writes about everything. Steve’s sure that she and Will and El and Jonathan (who still lives at home but commutes to Lewiston-Auburn College) are sick of hearing about family videos and Robin and how Dustin still has to help him calculate his hit points when he rolls in D&D. But it definitely beats hearing how concerned Joyce sounds once she asks, “are you sleeping okay?” and listening to that heavy, heavy silence that happens when Steve can’t bring himself to lie. 

Every so often, Steve will write to just Jonathan, or just El. He writes to Jonathan when the nightmares come hard and fast and frequent, and when he needs to remember the good things he did, the way that he had helped them win instead of all the things they had lost. Jonathan doesn’t worry-- not like Joyce does-- and he never makes Steve feel guilty when he writes him back. Best of all, he never calls. 

Steve writes to El far less often than he writes to Jonathan. He writes to El when he’s on patrol and sees far too many shadows, when he hears shrieks in the night, night after night. Sometimes Steve doesn’t remember writing to her-- it takes three to five business days for a letter to get where it’s meant to be, and sometimes after sending the letter he’ll flood with relief, know that reinforcements are coming, and finally, blessedly, be able to sleep. 

These are the sleeps that last for days. These are the sleeps where he wakes up to the walkie talkie blaring, or to the sharp rap of a Hawkins constable at his door, or to the phone ringing and ringing and ringing. The only consolation is that it’s not Joyce, it’s Eleven. Steve listens to the near-silence on the other end of the line as El sits and breathes too close to the receiver. After ten minutes or so, she’ll say, “You’re okay?” and Steve will say, “Yes,” and he’ll dream of pitch black and still water instead of demogorgons for the next few nights.

Steve writes to Nancy sometimes. He sees her once or twice a month, so it’s no big deal and there’s not a lot that he can’t say right to her face. If he needs to tell her something that can’t wait, he’ll call her in residence after 5pm that day, and she’s almost always there. 

So his letters to her are usually silly, a little pseudo-romantic and written in a grossly inaccurate facsimile of Elizabethan English. When Nancy remembers to reply, her letters are full of exasperation and fondness, and occasionally a photograph of the (her school) campus. 

Steve wants to write to Max. He’s wanted to write to Max for over a year now. But he sits and sits in front of a mostly blank paper, holding a pen and reading _ Dear Max _ over and over. Sometimes he writes _ Hey, it’s Steve! _ and it takes him longer to crumple the paper into the trash can than usual. Today is a _ Hey, it’s Steve! _day, and he’s sitting and reading his own name over and over until BIlly scares the shit out of him. 

All he says is “Hey,” but he appears out of nowhere to Steve’s right. 

“Holy shit,” Steve says, and almost falls off of his chair. 

“Sorry,” Billy doesn’t sound like he means it at all, and looks much more interested in reading over Steve’s shoulder. “You write to Max?”

“Um…” Steve shrugs. He puts his hand over the paper like he’s trying to stop Billy from seeing all the words he didn’t write. “Yeah. No. Kinda.”

Billy raises an eyebrow, hovers a little closer to Steve. “Yeah, no, or kinda? She write back?”

Steve shakes his head and shrugs. “I don’t… I haven’t finished writing a letter yet.”

Billy’s shoulders slump, like, a fraction and Steve’s kind of surprised. He wonders what it means, like if BIlly’s disappointed that Steve hasn’t heard from the girl who he so adamantly reminded people wasn’t related to him.

“I don’t know what to write,” Steve explains. He’s not sure why. Billy looks pensive, chewing his lip and letting this little furrow exist between his brows. 

“How about… I hope you’re doing okay. How’s school. Um… do you have a lot of nerdy little friends in…” The furrow gets deeper. “Where’d they move?”

Steve has almost everyone’ mailing address memorized, and he says, “Santa Monica,” without skipping a beat.

Billy doesn’t say anything after that, and when Steve looks over to ask him what to write next, he sees that his expression’s shuttered off. 

“Hey, Hargrove,” Steve frowns, taps his pen. 

Billy shakes himself out of it. He doesn’t look at Steve, but he makes one of the most uncomfortable smiles that he’s ever seen. 

“Ask her if she’s got lots of nerdy little friends in San-- Santa Monica,” His voice is tight. “Make a joke, like… I bet you’re glad you’re out of boring old Hawkins. Everything’s probably way more interesting over there.”

Steve doesn’t write those things down. “Billy--”

“Can I have a smoke?” He asks. It’s abrupt, and he’s staring at the wall or something. His eyes are a little red. 

“Sure, Steve frowns. They’re in my coat pocket, at the front…”

Billy’s gone, quiet and quick. Steve’s a little surprised that he hasn’t asked for cigarettes sooner. He looks at the letter, which has more words on it than he’s ever written, to Max. He writes the other things that Billy’s suggested: the nerdy little friends, the shtick about her being glad she’s out of boring old Hawkins. He doesn’t write anything about the monsters. Doesn’t write, _ I hope you’re doing okay without your brother_. He’d wanted to before, and it had made it so hard for him to write anything else. 

It’s a short letter, but it’s the best Steve’s ever done. So he seals it up tight and he writes the address where Max gets her mail from Hawkins. 

This is it, he thinks. This is his first letter to Max. Fifteen months later. 

“Jesus Christ,” he sighs. He’s gonna bring it to the post office before he changes his goddamn mind. 

Steve hates coming into an empty house and having to just figure out that he’s alone. It’s something he wouldn’t wish on anyone. So he gets up to tell Billy that he’ll be right back, even though he’s only going to be gone for a few minutes. He’s pretty sure Billy’s not gonna want to stop smoking Steve’s cigarettes to drop off a dinky piece of mail. 

“Hey, Hargrove?” Steve (slides) the back door open, catches sight of Billy smoking by the pool. He’s on his back, lying on Steve’s jacket with a cigarette between his lips and his feet in the water. Steve’s stomach does a little flip. He walks towards him, bare feet cold on the concrete. 

“Hargrove,” he says again. Billy sits up and kind of… tilts away from him. There’s the butt of a previous cigarette on the concrete, a smear of ash where it was put out. 

“Fuck off,” Billy asks it, kind of. It’s as close to a please as Steve’s ever heard from him. He frowns and joins him on the ground, crosses his legs instead of dangling them in the water. 

“Light me one,” Steve tells him. He leans over a little and scoots the envelope under his thigh for safekeeping. 

“Seriously?” Billy doesn’t sound as irritated as he could. 

After a while, he sighs deeply and taps a cigarette out of the box. He sticks it in his mouth, presses the tip of the old one against it. He breathes in, draws the heat and the flame towards himself, rubbing the end of the half-cigarette against the new one until it catches, too.

“I think,” Billy blows out a mouthful of smoke, angles it away from Steve even as he passes him his cigarette, “That they were just fucking... waiting. Waiting on me to die before they went back home.” 

Steve stays quiet. He doesn’t say anything because what could he even say to that?

But he presses his knee to the side of Billy’s leg, and Billy doesn’t shift away, and Steve doesn’t leave him alone with his feet dangling into the pool.

Steve never does end up sending Max’s letter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so tired and stressed. I have a good amount of chapters saved up, but I'm in a place where I'm rewriting chapters several times and just feeling disheartened about everything. Teacher's college is Wild rn, but hopefully after the next three weeks, it'll settle down. I hope everyone is taking care of themselves! The days are getting shorter, so please find sunshine in other areas of your lives. <3


	11. eleven.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy is fine.

Steve leaves that night, to go hang out with Dustin and the other kids. 

“You sure you’re okay?” he asks, like, at least three times. After they sat by the pool and finished half of Steve’s cigarettes together, after Billy got up and went inside to take a piss and ended up standing in front of the mirror, after he stared at himself long enough that he looked like a short-haired, blue-eyed stranger. 

He had climbed all the way upstairs to use the washroom. It was far, yeah, and it kind of didn’t make sense. But after he washes his hands and unlocks the door, he checks Steve’s room before he heads downstairs. 

It’s weird that he checks. It’s weird that whenever he’s in the upstairs bathroom, he wants to see if Steve’s there. He wants to be invited into the room again, lie on the bed. 

His dad… Neil. Neil would say it was weird. Billy can’t think of all the things he’d say, the awful things he’d tell him if he knew what Billy wanted, that Billy wanted to lie on Steve’s bed. That he didn’t mind if Steve was there too, that it had felt good when he said Billy could lie in the bed. 

Steve’s not in his room, though, when Billy checks. Even still, he stands in the doorway for a little while. Steve’s room looks like a hotel room in a magazine. He has a queen bed and a real vanity with the mirror attached and drawers in it and everything. He has a double-wide closet and the little TV and when Billy crosses the room to look out the huge window, he can see Steve’s pool, and trees with brown and orange leaves that go on forever. 

That’s where Steve finds him, in front of the window. 

“Hey,” he says, jostles Billy gently with his elbow. “You okay?”

That’s the first time, and Billy nods and looks at the leaves and says, “You’ve got quite a view, Harrington.” 

Steve lets out a little pulse of laughter. “It’s just Hawkins,” he says, and they look at the leaves together for a while. 

“You know,” Billy says, “I’m gonna have to get out of your hair eventually.” 

“Wha-a-at?” He draws it out, raises his voice half an octave, plays at looking shocked. His already big brown eyes get cartoonishly wide. Billy feels his lips curling into a smile. 

Harrington acts stupid, sometimes. Silly. Back when they were both in school, when Billy would watch Steve and get pissed off. He’d see him in basketball, or in the halls, talking to anyone. _ Everyone _ . He wasn’t King Steve anymore, but lots of people still liked him. He was likeable. He’d goof around, their faces would light up. But they’d always close off around Billy. Even Steve himself would drop back to serious, look at him like _ what’s wrong with you_, _ what are you looking at_, _ why are you here_. Billy didn’t get it. He was the most popular kid in school. He was the reigning Keg King. But Steve didn’t think he was cool, and he had _ tried_. He had tried. But then he had fucked Steve up, and he hadn’t even wanted to _look _ at him. 

“You should stick around,” Steve says. 

Billy shakes his head. “You think I wanna leech off of you for the rest of my life?”

Steve shrugs one-shouldered and gives Billy a smile. Like it’s not actually a big deal that he’s sucking up his? his parents’? money and giving nothing in return but mediocre housekeeping. “I don’t mind you being here.”

Billy can’t help but laugh. It’s sweet that Steve thinks that. Billy hit Steve over the head with a plate and all it takes for him to regain Steve’s trust is to come back from the dead. 

“You may not, but _ I _actually give a shit. Like… what happens when your parents come back and they find some random asshole in their house?”

“Are you kidding? That happens to me all the time.”

“Doubt it,” Billy’s eyes dart over to Steve. He’s smiling at him, and Billy can’t look too long. “Don’t your parents have state of the art locks or some shit?”

Steve gives Billy a terribly serious look. “One summer, when they were gone, I grew half a foot and a shitty puberty beard in like, a month. When they got back, they almost kicked me out.”

“No fuckin way,” Billy laughs. 

“Yeah fucking way,” Steve nudges him with his elbow again. “You know, maybe you should just tell them you’re me. Pretend like they forgot what I look like, right? Who knows, you might get a new car out of it.”

The mirth dies down eventually, and Billy finds himself looking out of the window again. He does miss his car. He misses being able to go anywhere he wants, whenever he wants to. That had been the power of the Camaro. Freedom. Safety too, though he didn’t like to admit it. He needed both, when he lived with Neil. With Dr. Owens, he was paying penance, didn’t deserve either. 

And here?

He isn’t stuck, not really. He doesn’t have his wheels so he can’t speed off, but if he wants to leave, there is no one who’d stop him. And there are hot showers. There’s a pool and pizza and there are soft beds and Steve’s smiles, and Steve. 

Steve and his big brown eyes. Steve and the waves of his chestnut brown hair. Steve and his bed, and how warm it is when both he and Billy are lying side by side. 

“I’m going to Dustin’s,” Steve announces, and something has to show on Billy’s face because Steve continues on. “Look, are you sure you’re okay? I can put it off, it’s no big deal.” 

“No, no. It’s fine, It’s whatever.” Steve’s elbow is still close, so Billy takes his turn to nudge him too. “We’ve been stuck in this house since…” He gestures vaguely. He doesn’t know. “Go chill with your tiny nerds, you weirdo.”

Steve narrows his eyes for a second. Billy’s scared he’s said something wrong, but then Steve’s face breaks into a grin and he’s perfect, so perfect, and Billy can hear his own heartbeat. 

Neil, the mean, sharp thing inside him says, would know what you are. 

Billy pushes away from the window, turns away from Steve, strides past the bed. 

“Don’t worry about it,” he tells Steve, above the pounding, pounding, of his heart, “I can take care of myself for a little while.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Steve turns from the window too, gestures towards Billy. “I mean, look at you.”

Billy frowns. He’s all skin and bones and sick-pale skin and buzz cut growing out. Hasn’t seen the sun or a set of weights in over a year. Weakthinugly. 

“Fuck you,” he says, and turns towards the foor, out of Steve’s room. He stops at the top of the stairs. 

“Billy, Billy-- wait,” Steve’s at his side again, at the top of the stairs. Billy jerks away when he touches his arm.

“I wasn’t kidding,” Steve says, and he reaches for Billy again. “I wasn’t. You almost _ died_. Like… I thought I saw you _ die_. That’s some of the most hardcore shit anyone’s ever been through.”

Billy’s holding himself awkward, all stiff from Steve touching him. But he doesn’t pull away.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Steve says it softly, touches Billy softly, like he’s dealing with something hurt, or scared.

“I’m fine,” Billy says, and when he says it, it has a bite to it, because he is both of those things. 

“Okay,” Steve’s face shutters, just a bit, but he forces a smile through the sad tilt of his lips. Billy’s heart drops, and he wants to apologize. Wants to tell Steve that he really is okay, and to go have fun, and he’s sorry that he snapped at him. 

“Yeah,” he grunts instead, and he turns his back and goes down the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have three presentations, four exams, five papers due between this and next week.  
thots and prayers


	12. twelve.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve visits the kids.

Steve says goodbye to Billy as best as he can. The door to the guest room is closed when he’s leaving, and when he knocks, there’s no sound from the other side. 

“I’m leaving for Dustin’s,” Steve figures Billy is asleep, or stewing in his own thoughts, “Should be back before midnight.” 

He’s worried. He doesn’t want Billy to be alone, especially not now. After sitting by the pool, after the little bit of a freakout upstairs. But he had said he was fine when Steve asked, one two and three times. He was grumpy about the last time. Cancelling dinner and the movie night to stay home would be like asking someone if they wanted tea and then -- on the third no -- pouring the scalding beverage down their throat. 

So Steve goes to Dustin’s. He eats what Mrs. Henderson cooks with gusto and he laughs at her old person jokes, and when she offers to wrap the leftovers for him, he accepts them enthusiastically. 

But everything’s tainted. He’s distracted. Thoughts of Billy colour everything that evening. It’s probably because he’s in Steve’s house that he’s in Steve’s head. And Steve said Billy could stay, so it makes sense that he’s stuck like this. 

As he eats, he wonders if the food is something Billy would like, if Steve can get his hands on the recipe if he does. He remembers Mrs. Henderson’s jokes, to sneak into conversation later, when Billy looks too sad or does that sharp, hurt laugh he does so much. And yeah, he’s always excited for Dustin’s Mom’s leftovers, but he feels a little thrill when he’s offered them this time, excited to share, eager to see how Billy finds a real home cooked meal instead of slices of toast or pizza.

When the other kids come over, it’s even worse. They talk to each other instead of just him, and Steve takes a backseat to their conversations. They’re watching this weird, dark animated thing from the 70s-- Wizards--and even the rack on the fairy princess can’t stop Steve from wanting to call his own house and make sure Billy’s okay. Not that he’d answer the phone. Hell, maybe Steve could drive home to check on him. His house isn’t that far away. 

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” The TV’s paused and Lucas is in the washroom, so Dustin’s taking his opportunity to grill Steve. “You haven’t said, like, one thing since you got here.”

“Nothing!” Steve says, and he sounds defensive, well, because _ he is_. “I’m perfectly fine!”

“Have you even been _ watching _the movie?

“Yeah,” Steve lies.

“Alright then,” Mike chimes in, shifts in his seat and Steve groans internally. He just _ knows _ that this next sentence is gonna start with ‘_prove_.’

“Name one character,” he challenges him. 

“I can do _ more _ than that--” Steve counts them out on his fingers-- “Red guy, Magic old leprechaun, clown dad, Titty Fairy!” He gestures to the television, like it’s obvious. Which it is. He hadn't _ not _ been paying attention, he’d just been a little bit distracted. 

“Hitler Skeleton Man!” Steve raises five fingers, victorious. 

Dustin narrows his eyes at Steve, despite his success. “I said _ name _them. Those aren’t names, those are specific physical attributes.”

“It’s good enough,”

“_No_,” Dustin raises his eyebrows, talks to Steve like he’s an idiot. He might be the only person in the world who can do that without Steve wanting to sock him in the face, which says a lot. “Peace, formerly known as Necron ninety-nine. Avatar, The President-- who doesn’t technically have a name. Goddamn _ Princess Elinore_. And Blackwolf! Now can you pay attention, _ please_.”

Steve does not pay attention. 

It’s when the credits are rolling and both Mike and Lucas are gone (raiding Dustin’s kitchen’s amply stacked snack cupboard, most likely-- Mrs. Henderson has a love-love relationship with food and only one child to dote on) that Dustin takes the opportunity to spring on Steve. Again. 

“Did you find something?” Dustin asks and the non-sequitur is enough to shock Steve out of wondering if Billy’s ever seen _ Wizards_, if he’d think Princess Elinore was hot. 

“What?” Steve asks, and Dustin tries (fails) not to roll his eyes.

“Did. You. _ Find _ something. On one of your patrols.”

Steve frowns. He’s never talked with the kids about the patrols. 

“I know,” Dustin explains, almost patiently. “We _ all _ know. El told us. Like, a year ago.”

Steve’s face falls. Shit. That was the first time she had called him from the Byers. Not as a follow up to Joyce, or Jonathan. He had written her a letter. 

Dustin sighs and claps a hand to Steve’s shoulder. “It’s okay. We’re here for you.”

“Wait-- what the f-- hell?! You _ knew _ and you didn’t even say anything for a freaking _ year_?!”

Dustin shrugs. “El said there was nothing to worry about. Well-- not about the upside down, anyways. Not then.”

“Okay…”

“She just said to keep an eye on you.”

“So… You’ve been… keeping an eye on me. This whole time.”

“Well, her precise words were, ‘Steve’s getting stuck in the dark spot in his head. Help him,’ But yeah. Pretty much.”

Steve remembers something. He remembers the days after Billy died, after the gate was closed for the second time. The funeral, the sad little reception. The going away party for El and the Byers. Then, later in the summer, the going away party for Nancy, too. Hearing that Max had left, through Dustin, the Friday before high school had started. 

Checking the radio every night before bed, to make sure its battery was running, it was on the right channel. Testing it sometimes, when everything seemed too quiet. 

Then last Halloween, when he had just dumped the rest of the bowl of full sized chocolate bars into the bag of one lucky trick-or-treater, his walkie talkie fuzzed to life without him calling someone first. Steve, do you copy? He remembered Dustin speaking, tripping over himself to get to the radio he had stashed under his bed. I copy, he had said. Over. His heart was pounding and he had just picked up his nail bat when Dustin had asked if he wanted to come over for dinner. Then movie night with the guys after. 

“So we’ve been… hanging out. Because El told you to?” What he doesn’t say is, because you felt sorry for me?

“I’d _ meant _ to invite you over.” Steve’s riled up. He’s about to call Dustin on his bullshit, but then ho looks at his face. He’s sombre. Steve sees regrets. Dustin looks old. A kid has no business looking that old. 

“After… everything,” Dustin continues, quiet, “We all just kinda… got stuck in our own heads.”

Steve understands this. He can’t, he _ can’t _ blame Dustin for getting swept up in tragedy, the… dark spot in his _ own _ head. He wonders if Dustin forgot to invite the other kids over, too. He wonders if he had nightmares, if he still does. He wonders if he remembers what Billy looked like when he was killed. 

“It’s cool we started hanging out again,” Steve tells him. Dustin gives him a toothless grin, and Steve feels something tight in his chest unfurling. 

The doorbell rings, and Mike comes flying into the living room. 

“There’s trick-or-treaters out there!”

“What the shit?!” Dustin yelps, “The lights aren’t even on, what do they think is gonna get?”

The doorbell rings again.

“They’re gonna egg your house!” Lucas yells from the kitchen.

“I’ll call the cops!” Dustin shrills, blasts past Steve and into the front room. 

“I’ll give them some popcorn or something!” Mike’s near the front door, and Steve can hear the _ thunk _of the lock opening.

“_ Don’t you touch my freaking snacks_!” 

Steve laughs. He laughs and laughs. Jesus, he loves these kids.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrote my last two exams today! Have one paper like, super due tomorrow and then like three papers that I still have to do whose due dates are flexible. SO FAR I'M STILL ALIVE 
> 
> You can find Wizards on YouTube [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr56uMIohC8)! It's a weird little thing and I haven't watched it recently enough for CWs so go gently.


	13. thirteen.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy has a rough time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New tags, because CW: Using queer as a slur, and f*g, as well as its long form.

Billy wakes up in the basement of the steel mill.

His head is pounding, and when he reaches back to push his fingers through his hair and to his scalp, they come away wet with blood. He's not sure how he made it here. Again. But hell if the first thing he does isn't try to find his way out. 

He must be pretty fucking disoriented because he starts walking toward where he's sure the stairs are and, like, two minutes later he's still walking. No steps in sight. So he goes the other way. 

He runs into the same problem. Or, well... he doesn't. He doesn't run into anything. No steps. No walls, even. Just cold concrete floor and the echo of his footsteps on it, his boots _ thump thump thump _ through the semi dark. 

Okay, well. It's obviously not working. And he can't get out of this godforsaken place if he can't find the goddamn stairs. And that sure as shit doesn't seem to be happening. So --he makes a sharp, perpendicular turn-- he'll find a wall. Run his hand along it. Until it brings him to the stairs.

Only trouble is, he can't find a wall either. He's just _ thump thump thump _ through the dark and there's no way for him to get back to the upper floor, leave the stupid steel mill. And there's this smell, too, like… the damp earth smell, too, like when you walk into a basement riddled with black mold. It keeps getting stronger as he walks. 

His senses of space and time are getting a little fucky. He knows he’s walked pretty fucking far for a pretty long time, but he doesn’t know if he’s walked a block or a mile, fifteen minutes or an hour. His head is so packed with the damp earth smell that he almost misses it when this… dark, sweetsick smell of rot curls up into his throat and settles. 

The smell freaks him out. It smells like when he was six and he had to pinch his nose all the way from the middle of his front yard until he got through the sun room and closed the main door of the house behind him. His mother didn’t mind, but the one time Neil had a day off from work, he saw Billy suck in his breath and hold his nose and made fun of him for it. He called him a wimp, and a baby and a pussy, and said there was nothing there and made Billy stand on the front porch in the sun with his little backpack on until he stopped gagging from the smell. Three days later Neil had to work himself into the crawlspace. He came out with the deflated corpse of a raccoon, and Billy couldn’t stop himself from crying. 

That smell -- that raccoon-under-porch smell, that he-was-right, there was _ something _ but Neil still called him names smell-- that smell gets stronger too. Billy keeps walking, and the smell gets stronger. But he can’t turn back now, he _ needs _ to walk-- needs to get to the wall, needs to find his way out of the basement, out of the mill. He’s pissed, now-- He’s pretty fuckin pissed because he’s been walking and walking and the goddamn smells keep getting worse and _ worse_, and there’s no fucking wall. He even starts to hear sounds: low clicks, a growl. The grumble of something huge, the slick sound of it in the dark, sliding itself across the floor. 

He tastes the smell of dead raccoon. Maybe this isn’t the right way to go after all. 

Billy turns, and that’s a mistake too. He’s hit with the smell and a faceful of black smoke. It surrounds him easy, even as he stumbles, flails, tries to get out of it. He gags, he gags and he pinches his nose, but the sickdark smell and all the smoke gets inside him anyways. The smoke goes into his nose and his eyes and his mouth, and he feels his lungs trying and failing, failing, failing to empty. He fights the smoke and there’s nothing to push up against, nothing to (battle), and he’d feel so fucking stupid whipping his arms around if he wasn’t _ choking_\--

Then there are hands on him, and he can’t even do that. 

_ Don’t be afraid_. The voices he hears are familiar, even though he’s only heard them crying, begging. _ It’ll be over soon_, they tell him. Faces swim through the dark. Doris Driscoll, Adam Langley. David March. Heather Holloway. There are so many hands, and some of them are very small. _ Don’t be afraid_. They reach for him through the smoke, grab at him. They dig their fingers in. Pull him down, down. He can’t breathe, and he can’t see. He can feel the hands, though, and they all grab and pull and all together like this, they're too strong to fight. 

He knows it’s over. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen or how much pain he’ll be in, but it’s over for him. This is a fact. But still he fights, writhing in the grasp of all the townspeople of Hawkins that he killed or helped kill or watch die without lifting a finger to help. _ I deserve this_, he thinks, but he struggles and pulls and somehow he yanks an arm free and his hand curls into a fist and he’s pulling, pulling away. They grab at him still, from below, then there are creatures pushing him _ down_, from above him. 

He flails. He fights. He hits out, hits out, gasps and _ fuck _ the smoke is gone and he’s breathing, breathing, finally. But the hands are still on him, and he’s hitting, hitting, until his fist _ crunches _ into bone and flesh, and there’s a wet grunt and a _ Jesus, Hargrove! _ and he opens his eyes there’s Harrington, Steve Harrington, sitting on the floor by the bed with a chin full of blood. 

“Oh,” Billy says, and he looks at the boy on the ground. Steve looks up at him, looks shocked. 

“What the fuck,” Steve says. His eyes are so wide and there is blood between his teeth. “Are you okay?”

Billy stumbles out of the bed. The guilt is hot, heavy in his stomach and the feeling slides in, in between all the cracks in the fear. It feels like someone poured cement down his throat. It feels like he’s going to be sick. 

He wants to run out. He wants to get out of the room. But the ground Steve is sitting on is right in front of the door, and there’s no way, no way in hell he’s moving past him. 

Billy curls himself up into a tight little ball, opposite Steve, on the other side of the bed. His heart is pounding so hard, and when he thinks of the crunch of Steve’s lips and teeth against his knuckles (_again _ Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ-- what the hell is _ wrong _ with him), his eyes burn. 

“Billy,” Steve’s standing, scooting around the end of the bed to Billy’s side. Billy tries his very best to collapse into himself, disappear as Steve crouches to look at him, face all full of concern and care and bright red blood. 

“Get the fuck away from me,” Billy snarls, and Steve’s face falls. He looks _ hurt_\-- more hurt than he was with just the blood on his face-- and guilt hits Billy like a wave. 

“Fuck,” He puts his head down, on his knees. Steve hasn’t gone away yet, still in his fucking space, and Billy has no idea why. 

“What the hell is _ wrong _ with you?!” Billy shouts, and his voice breaks, and he can’t help but look at Steve, even though his eyes are filling up, spilling over. Steve, sitting there and waiting for him, blood in his teeth. Like Billy hadn’t just hit him in the face. Like Billy hadn’t beat him to hell two years ago. Like Billy wouldn’t, sometime in the future, just keep hitting and hitting and hitting, and never stop, because that’s just the way he is. 

What can Billy do, he wonders, to get Steve to _ stop_? Stop forgiving, stop _ trusting _ him, stop looking at him like he matters, like he’s something worth keeping around? 

Billy smirks. “I’m a queer,” He offers. He doesn’t know why he picks that. But he says it like he’s a cornered animal, all teeth and spite, hoping it cancels out the tears. He waits for the switch in Steve’s expression. For anger and disgust, at the very least. At best, he’ll step back, make sure Billy doesn’t touch him. 

But Steve frowns, looks even more concerned. “So…?” He asks, and Billy laughs like it’s his last chance to laugh on earth, so he’s doing it whether he means it or not. 

“I’m a fucking faggot,” He sneers, powers through the end where his voice wobbles. He waits and waits for Steve to _ do something _ , like stand up and tell him to get out, or walk out of the room, or even say _ I understand, Billy, I understand, but I can’t let you stay here anymore. _ But none of that happens, none of those words come, and he watches Steve watching him and all he looks is pensive at the very worst, and there’s no goddamn _ hate _. 

Billy lets the words run out of him: “You let a faggot beat the shit out of you, and you’re gonna let one stay in your goddamn house, Harrington? Christ, I thought you were stupid, but this is next level idiocy!”

And then Billy’s yelling, and his back is pressed up against the wall, and then Steve takes it up a notch by reaching forward, putting his hand right on Billy’s fac_e, _ and rubbing his thumb real gentle under Billy’s eye. Steve doesn’t tell him he’s weak, or call him a baby or a pussy, and he doesn’t hit him back. 

He sits with Billy in the corner, wipes his face.

Billy lets him.


	14. fourteen.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve considers his impulses.

They don’t talk about it, afterwards. 

Steve… Hell. He had wiped tears off of Billy fuckin Hargrove’s face, and now they’re not talking about it. Steve goes to work, comes back home, makes dinner for both of them. Sometimes they watch TV in Steve’s room, fall asleep in Steve’s bed. Sometimes he looks at the cut on his lip in the mirror, checks in on it as it fades. Sometimes they go out on patrol together. Nothing really changes. 

Steve kind of likes it this way. He’s relieved to have not fucked things up between then when he… reached out to touch Billy’s face. Jesus. Not that there was anything _ between _ them. They were friends. They had, somehow, managed to make friends. Billy was different compared to how Steve knew him when he had met him before. Kinder, yeah, but strange and sad. But wasn’t everyone in Hawkins, eventually? 

Steve, though, can’t get Billy out of his head. Still. And this time it’s _ serious_. Now, when he wakes up and Billy’s not there, Steve feels disappointed. When he wakes up and Billy is there, he’ll catch himself _ looking _ at him. Billy has the best eyelashes that Steve’s ever seen on another human being, and just before he wakes up, he’ll do this little frown and wrinkle his nose and sniffle. Steve always feels something in his chest twist, and he has to look away. He tells himself it’s so Billy doesn’t catch him staring. But sometimes, if he doesn’t stop looking right away, he’ll get this impulse to reach out and smooth the little furrow in his brow. 

It’s that impulse, really, that’s got Steve so stressed out. He’s not sure what it means. He wonders if maybe it’s because Billy looks like he’s frowning, and Steve wants to touch his face like he did that one time when Billy was-- hell, it blows his mind every time he thinks of it-- when Billy was _ crying_. 

He hadn’t pulled away when Steve touched him then. Not even when he’d shifted his weight and swing his right hand up to dry under Billy’s other eye, too. Steve sucked the blood off of his busted lip and just… cradled Billy’s face in his hands and Billy didn’t push Steve or pull away from him or tell him to fuck off again. He just kind of… let Steve hold him and closed his eyes until his breath stopped hitching. 

He had made Billy feel better. He thinks that’s why he wants to touch him again, make that little frown go away. They’re friends, and friends like making sure their friends are okay. 

Steve wonders if Billy, too, agrees with this philosophy. It’s a couple nights after the… the crying and Billy’s sitting shotgun during patrol when Steve feels his eyes on him instead of on the dark streets of Hawkins. 

“Hey,” Billy says it kind of soft. Weird, Billy being soft. 

“Yeah?” Steve keeps his eyes on the road, doesn’t give in to the urge he has to look over, see what expression goes with Billy’s soft. 

“How’s your…” Billy’s quiet a bit, and then Steve _ does _ look over. He gives in, kind of. He sees Billy watching him, showing his teeth and tapping his chin. 

“Oh,” Steve says. He brings his eyes back to the road, presses his tongue against the inside of his bottom lip. It’s tender still, swollen. Yesterday, midway through his leftover pizza crust, it had gotten caught between his bottom incisors. It was pretty fucked up. He had to ice it and everything. 

“It’s a lot better,” he lies. He hears shifting in the passenger seat. Steve’s pretty sure Billy’s looking at him, still. 

“Hey,” he says again. Steve grunts. He sees something flicker in the dark and he frowns a little bit, leans forward over the steering wheel. 

“I shouldn’t…” Billy moves some more, fabric rustling against fabric. Steve continues down the block until he comes to the intersection, makes a right turn. He’s going to loop around again. 

Billy sighs, kind of heavy. The block is short and Steve almost misses the next right. 

“Don’t wake me up again,” Billy continues. Another right, then another short block.

“What?” Steve frowns.

“Don’t wake me up again. If I’m like that. Got it?” Billy sounds blunt, but doesn’t have that edge to his tone. Not as weird as soft, but still strange. 

Steve makes his last turn. He’s on the street again, where he was when he saw something move in the dark. He slows down, maybe as fast as someone walking. 

“Like… if you’re having a nightmare?” He asks Billy, keeps his eyes on the darkness between the houses. He could’ve _ sworn _ he saw something. “You don’t want me to wake you up out of a nightmare?”

Billy’s quiet, and when Steve hazards a glance at him, he shakes his head. 

“Not if it’s like that,” He says. “Not if I’m… not if I’m fighting like that.”

Steve presses on the brake. He’s stopping right in the middle of the street, but it doesn’t matter because no one else in Hawkins is gonna be driving around at this time of night. Morning. Whatever. He turns to Billy and tries to think of something to say. 

Billy sort of scrunches down in his seat. “What are you looking at me like that for?” His knees are up on the dash, like the first time he was in Steve’s car after he had made him get out from under the tree. “You know your face is your only good feature. Can’t have me fucking it up just ‘cause you feel like playing martyr in the middle of the night.”

Steve huffs out a laugh, shakes his head. Billy’s not _ entirely _wrong, but still. 

“What if I said no?” Steve’s still looking at him, hasn’t started the car, hasn’t searched the dark again. There’s a little niggling of something that wants him to check, look outside, make sure that the shadows are still and empty, but he pushes it down, down, down, and watches Billy sigh deep and drop his head back.

“Fuck off,” he says. “You know I’m just gonna punch you in the face again if you do that shit. I can’t fucking help it.” 

“Can’t help punching me in the face?” Steve grins. He’s joking, he wants to say, as Billy whips towards him, looks a little stung. But his expression settles and he decides to smile. Like he’s smiling because Steve is smiling. 

“You know I can’t stay out of trouble,” He drawls. The smile turns into a smirk, something a little more inherently Billy. But it’s not sharp or mean or anything. It takes a moment for Steve to put a finger on it: It’s _ playful_. And Billy hasn’t made him promise not to wake him up from nightmares anymore. Steve’s pretty sure that he could figure out how to do that without getting socked in the face again. 

He looks back out his window. There is nothing in the dark, now. Steve feels something apprehensive curl up under his lungs, but that’s coming from inside him and not from outside of him. Outside of him, Billy is scrunched down in the passenger seat, where he does not want to hurt Steve anymore. Outside of him, the streets of Hawkins stretch, calm and empty and still.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Thanks for being patient with this chapter; even though my exams are done, it's still quite the ride. Being in school while living on my own is definitely a new experience for me. 
> 
> That being said, my December chapter schedule is going to be a little bit different! I am going to post a chapter every other week in December-- on the fourth and on the eighteenth -- and then back to your regularly scheduled chapters on the first of January. I have a couple of things that I need to focus on during this month, and I would like to make sure that they get done as well as this fic.
> 
> Thanks so much for your patience and understanding!


	15. fifteen.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy gets out of bed.

Billy wakes up startled, heart pounding, to some asshole laying on the horn outside. 

“What the fuck,” He grunts. The other half of the bed is empty and he’s sprawled across the middle, clutching a pillow that smells like Farrah Fawcett spray. He pulls the pillow over his head and comes close, so close to falling back to sleep and--

“Fuck!” He yells, pressing his face into the mattress. That fucking _ horn_. Christ. _ Christ. _

He’d gotten, maybe like, five hours of sleep total? Four and a half? Steve kind of hates sleep, or something, so even though Billy always starts his day long after Steve does, they always kind of turn in at about midnight or one or so. Steve sleeps until three and his shifting around to get dressed usually wakes Billy up just in time for him to tag along with Steve on patrol for a couple hours. Steve sleeps until it’s time for him to wake up for work, and he’s usually saying ‘goodbye’ around eight. 

When Steve’s gone, Billy starfishes in the bed, grips at Steve’s pillow. He hates the fact that he has to hold a pillow -- hold _ Steve’s _ pillow -- if he wants to go back to sleep in the morning. He tried not to for a few days, after he told Steve he was a fag. He didn’t want to push his luck. But he couldn’t get back to sleep, not really, without it. 

Like hell he’s going back to sleep now. Billy throws the pillow away from himself, launches it over the edge of the bed. For a second he feels bad about getting floor germs all over the thing Steve puts his face on, but then that _ fucking horn _ makes that goddamn sound again, and that’s _ that _.

He’s only wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants, and though he throws on his hoodie, the cold of early November still hits him right in the chest. Jesus, he hates Indiana. He wonders if he could have convinced Dr. Owens to have dropped him off somewhere warm, or somewhere without assholes who wouldn’t honk the horn on their fucking--

The sound goes right through him, this time because it’s so close. It’s coming from the driveway in front of Harrington’s house because it’s _Harrington’s_ _car_.

The cement is cold even through the soft soles of the socks Steve had bought for him, but he’s got more important things to worry about, like all the sleep he’s not getting because some idiot is laying on the horn at like eight in the morning. 

“Are you fuckin kidding me?” Billy pounds on Harrington’s passenger window with a closed fist. Harrington’s head shoots up from where he’s -- what the hell -- actually laying on the horn. Jesus fuck. 

“What the hell, Harrington?” Billy shouts it loud, but not mean. Steve already looks properly ashamed. 

He opens the driver’s side door and gets out. “Sorry,” he says, and his sincerity kills the rest of Billy’s ire, “The fucking…” He hits the roof of the Beemer open-handed, rakes his fingers through his hair. 

“Car won’t start?” Billy fills in. Steve looks like he hadn’t slept since they got back from patrol. The bags under his eyes are legendary. Billy’s almost eighty-five percent sure that he just lay in bed with his eyes open last night, didn’t do _ any _sleeping. 

Steve nods, lips tight together. “I’m gonna be late for work,” he says. Billy thinks he looks far too distraught for being absent from a minimum wage video store job. 

“Did you call and tell ‘em?” Billy asks and Steve nods again. He’s not sure what the problem is, then, but he can figure that out later. “Pop the hood,” Billy sees his breath rise, smoke-like in front of him. He crosses his arms, burying his hands into his armpits. Steve’s lucky that Billy… that Billy’s cool with him.

Steve frowns. “I’m gonna call my mechanic.” He says it like a warning. 

“You think I don’t know what I’m doing?” Billy raises an eyebrow.

“I think you’re gonna wreck my car for good.” Between the ice in Steve’s glare and the actual fucking cold, Billy is well on his way to getting hypothermia.

“Shit, Harrington,” Billy stamps his sock feet. He is regretting almost everything that lead up to this point in time. “Open the fucking hood. I’m not gonna mess up your carriage, princess.”

Steve somehow manages to roll and narrow his eyes at the same time. It’s the most truly amazing combination of exasperation and skepticism that Billy’s ever seen, and he files it away in hopes that he can use it later. In the end, though, Steve gets back into his car, pops the hood. 

“Don’t touch anything,” Steve warns. 

“Yeah, yeah…”

Billy knows cars. He did cars, back in California. One of his dad’s friends had taken a liking to him, saw past his temper, his abrasiveness. He had given Billy the opportunity to put things together instead of tear them apart, and Billy had drank up his praise like a man dying of thirst. Neil hadn’t given a shit what he was up to then either, had just been thrilled that Billy was keeping out of trouble and was somewhere that Neil could get him if he wanted him. 

He pulls up the hood, props it open with the stand. He’s a little jealous of Harrington-- sitting in this pretty little machine every day and he can’t even appreciate how nice it runs. 

“Start it up,” Billy orders, and Steve sighs. He’s sitting his his leg planted on the ground, and he tilts out of the car to shout at Billy:

“It’s _ not starting_!”

“Do it anyways!”

Steve’s face is gonna stick like that, Billy decides. He doesn’t hear anything when Harrington turns the key in the ignition-- not even the false start of the endine, or the customary _ clickclickclickclick _ of a dead battery.

He doesn’t entirely keep his promise not to touch anything. Mr. Harrington has a fucking _ voltmeter _ in his garage, which Billy is pretty excited about. He gets to confirm that the battery’s good, instead of living on a prayer. 

Nothing’s rusty or corroded, terminals are tight. Billy makes Steve get out of the car so he can check that the clutch safety switch is plugged all the way in, and then he makes Steve get back into the car to have him try and run it again as he checks the starter relay and the fuses. 

Billy’s like, ninety-nine percent sure it’s the starter. Which means Steve’s right-- he’s gonna need a mechanic to fix it. But California’s taught Billy a lot of neat little tricks, and the look on Steve’s face is so, so worth it when he disappears into the garage and comes back with a hammer. 

“What the _ fuck_, Hargrove,” Steve snarls, and he even gets up out of the car. “No. Fucking _ no_. Put that away and get the _ fuck _ away from my car.”

Billy puts his hands up, one palm open and facing Steve, the other one still wielding the hammer. Billy wants to laugh. It looks bad, yeah. He knows it looks bad. But if something works -- and he’s seen it work-- there’s no reason for him not to try it. 

“I’ve done this before,” Billy kind-of lies. He just doesn’t think ‘I saw a guy do this a couple times’ has quite the same ring to it. “I’m not just fucking around. I promise I won’t break your car.”

“You’d better be shitting me,” Steve looks, like, actually pissed. Even worse, he looks like he might be terrified under all of that anger. His eye bags look like they’re all packed and ready for a road trip. Jesus. He might not have actually slept last night. Billy has this image of, like, dropping the hammer and just pulling Steve back into the house, giving him his pillow back and making him sleep.

Instead, he shakes his head. “No shit,” he says, “Not even a little shit. Get in the car, Harrington.”

Steve frowns. He does not get into the car. 

“Look,” Billy’s the one sighing now. He drops his arms. “You can sit here and we can wait for a tow truck to take you to someone who’s just gonna check all the shit that I just checked, or I can do what I’m gonna do, we can drive to your mechanic, and tell him what’s up so you can get to your little video store job.”

Steve’s shoulders slump. His gaze is locked on the hammer in Billy’s hand. 

“It’s cool,” Billy says. He tries to sound as patient as he can. He tries to sound like how he wished people would talk to him, when he was scared. “It’s cool. Are you cool?”

Steve looks up, eventually. He offers the tiniest, most hesitant smile. “I’m cool.”

Billy gets down, lays on his back on the cement and scoots under the car. He thinks of that little smile, hopes he doesn’t fuck up. He tells Steve to sit in the driver’s seat, keep the door open so he can hear Billy when he shouts:

“Start it!”

Steve turns the key. Billy holds the hammer in his fist, and it _ thunks _ vertically against the starter. 

Steve’s engine springs to life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, another late one; sorry about that, guys! Next one will be posted on the 18th. Thanks for your patience.  
Also like? I had to do research on cars for this chapter, and I kind of hated it.


	16. sixteen.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve spills the beans.

Steve feels like shit, but he gets to work eventually.

Billy was right. It hadn’t taken super long when they got to the mechanic’s. There was this moment where Billy had told the guy what was up and he had gotten a look like he was nuts, but Billy had put his fists in his pockets and explained, again, as best as he could. 

In the end, it took about half an hour for Steve’s car to be back on the road. The mechanic had asked Billy if he wanted to come back tomorrow afternoon, hang around the shop for a bit once it got busy, since he seemed to know a thing or two about cars. When Billy’s expression changed, it did so ever so fractionally, his eyes getting wide and his face getting soft and Steve’s pretty sure that the mechanic didn’t even notice. 

Steve tries his best to commit that look to memory. He had a feeling that this-- Billy, being open, being surprised when someone told him he’d done something good -- was going to be the highlight of his day. 

He isn’t wrong. As soon as Steve walks into Family Video, Keith makes the most aggressive eye contact that Steve’s ever received and draws his finger threateningly across his throat. 

“This close, Harrington.” He holds his fingers maybe an eighth of an inch apart. “I came _ this close _ to letting you go today. You’re lucky you have someone in your corner, otherwise--” Keith snaps his fingers, as close to Steve’s face as he can get-- “Poof, gone, outta here. Now get those rentals back on the shelves in--” He checks his watch-- “Fifteen minutes, or you’re fired!”

Steve sighs heavy. “My car broke down, and I--”

“Fourteen minutes, fifty-seven seconds! Let’s go, Harrington!”

It’s not a big deal. Usually, it’s not a big deal. Keith yells at him all the time. He’s never really liked Steve (or anyone, for that matter. Well, anyone but Robin, and even then she’s on thin ice) and he’s used to it. He is. 

But fuck if his stomach doesn’t sink and twist when he’s banished to empty the video return cart. Hell if he doesn’t feel something prickle behind his eyes at the potential that shit, he’d better watch his back or he’s going to be out of a job, and for real this time. Not just because his place of employment was seized by the government and destroyed in a cover-up fire. 

Sometimes Steve’s not sure if he’s exasperated by or thankful for Robin. She is, after all, like one of the few people who catches on when he’s in his own head _ and _actually gives a shit enough to do something about it. 

He is definitely, one hundred percent in his own head when Robin comes up and startles him by taking a video tape out of his hand. 

“‘_The Muppets Take Manhattan_.’ Cool. You look like shit, Steve.”

“Thanks,” he says, takes _ The Muppets _ back from her. “I have, like, six minutes to put these away.”

“It’s cute that you care what Keith says to you,” Robin laughs. She snatches the video from Steve’s hands again and grabs a few more from the cart. 

“I don’t,” Steve lies, and follows her with his own armful of VHS tapes. Robin reshelves like a pro, and Steve resigns himself to walking back and forth from the cart, bringing her movies to put away.

“What’s going on in your head, Harrington?” Robin asks. 

_ Hargrove _ , he wants to say. _ Hargrove, crying. Hargrove, fixing my car. Billy, giving a shit._ Or maybe he wants to say _ I can’t stop thinking about monsters_. He swallows hard and shrugs and Robin makes a face at him.

She says nothing, and she says it for a long time. Steve hates the silence and Robin knows this, and he _ knows _ she knows this, and she uses it against him _ all the time_, and he never wants to give in, except--

“Hargrove,” he says. No. _ No_. _ Shit_. “I mean… I can’t stop thinking about monsters.”

Robin frowns. It’s her ’decoding Russian’ frown, which means Steve knows he’s in trouble. Shit. 

“Hargrove,” she says, “Like… Billy Hargrove? You said Hargrove.”

“No I didn’t,” Steve lies. Again. Like she wouldn’t notice. 

“You did,” Robin says, smug. “And you can’t stop thinking about monsters.” Robin looks like the gears in her brain are just whirring away. Steve hates that expression too. She opens her mouth and Steve cringes. 

“Is Hargrove the monster you can’t stop thinking about?”

“No,” Steve says immediately. His first truth. But if she doesn’t think Billy’s the monster, he reasons, maybe she’s going to realise that Billy’s something else. “...Yes?”

Robin looks at him and Steve feels like a bug under a microscope. She grabs another armful of tapes and Steve thinks he’s off the hook. 

It’s too good to be true, he realises, when he and Robin are on lunch. She throws a box of pilfered junior mints at him, and as he tries simultaneously to dodge it and catch it, Robin surprises him with what she says, too.

“So. Hargrove.”

Steve makes a stupid sound and drops the box on the concrete.

“Uh...” he is at the pinnacle of his eloquence. “No?”

“Didn’t he beat you up at some house party?”

Steve wonders how Robin managed to learn about that and simultaneously get the facts so wrong. Then he remembers that Hawkins, Indiana is about the size of a postage stamp and news always travels like wildfire-- quickly, and not very much like how it started out.

“It… it’s not-- it wasn’t like that.”

Robin purses her lips. She looks like a teacher, or a lawyer, or a scientist trying to pick out Steve’s flaws. He’d be afraid of her if she wasn’t his best friend. 

“If he’s not the monster you’re thinking of, what is he?”

Steve thinks of this morning’s Billy, under Steve’s car in a hoodie and socks. He thinks of Billy a few nights ago, afraid in his sleep and remorseful when he woke up. He called himself names and let Steve wipe his tears. He thinks of Billy in Steve’s bed, when they have dinner and watch TV. When Billy falls asleep, all dark eyelashes and soft snores. When he wakes up, blue eyes. When he woke Steve up, pulling him from a nightmare, keeping his hand on his head. When he found him in the dark.

“Oh.” Robin’s oh, so quiet, and Steve almost doesn’t catch the little sound she makes, “Did you… _ like _ him?”

Things slide into place, and Steve’s world turns upside down. 

“Oh. Fuck,” Steve says.

“I’m sorry.” Robin puts a hand on Steve’s shoulder, squeezes it and rocks him a bit. “It must be hard. Weird.” 

She has no idea. She doesn’t understand what it’s like to wake up to that face in the morning, to want to smooth the furrow from his brow. That’s what friends do for each other, Steve had told himself. They made each other feel better. And he’s sure, so sure, that’s what Billy wants, too. Friends. Somewhere safe. And Robin’s right. How could she tell, when he couldn’t?

“I’m sorry,” she says again. She’s pulling at Steve and then he’s being held. He feels his arms come up, hold her back. His brain’s freaking out on its own. 

“I can’t imagine. Hell, it’s bad enough liking another boy. But when he’s…” she rubs his back. “I don’t know what I’d do, if Tammy Thompson… was like that. If she hurt me and then she… she died.”

“What? He’s not--”

It takes a second for Steve to understand why Robin freezes, but by then it’s too late. He doesn’t know why he bothers trying to keep secrets, honestly. He slumps in her arms, puts his head on her shoulder. 

“Steve,” she says it slow and patient. Steve remembers when he was four and he had come in from the backyard with his hands clasped tight. His nanny had said it, _ Steve_, in just the same way. She took him back outside, asked him to show her the something precious he had found. 

“I know,” he says. He had opened his hands, slowly, slowly. She had smiled at the little frog he had found, reminded him to be gentle with it. Set it free when he was done. 

Steve tells Robin everything about Billy. 

He doesn’t stop thinking about monsters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life is rough. But there's still Harringrove to soothe us in the interim. Thanks for your patience. Next update January 1st, 2020.


	17. seventeen.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy drives around a bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for the bad f word again

When Billy first gets behind the wheel of Steve’s car, there’s a moment where he’s nervous. He feels his shoulders get all tight and he must have some sort of _ look _ on his face because Steve pauses before he walks into the video store and stares Billy right in the eyes. 

“You okay?” he says. Billy doesn’t think that Steve has any reason to ask him that, looking like he does. Then again, Billy doesn’t think it makes sense to get all wound up over driving the, what, four minutes it would take to bring the Beemer back to Harrington’s. 

“Peachy,” Billy says, gives Steve one of the grins he had used for Mrs. Wheeler, way back… before. He’s sure it doesn’t have quite the same effect, with his hair working on growing in and his wearing a full shirt, but it gets Harrington off his back. 

“Five o’ clock, yeah?” Steve asks for, like, the third time. Yes, five o’ clock. Billy’s not gonna leave him to languish at the Family Video, he’s assured him of this on multiple occasions. 

“Sorry, what time?” Billy tilts his head towards Steve, pretends that he didn’t hear him the first seven times he spoke. “Six thirty? Four fifteen?”

Steve rolls his eyes and turns his back and takes a couple steps to the Family Video before he does this quick about face and comes back to the car.

“Five o’ clock, Harrington, Jesus,” Billy calls. Steve rolls his eyes, but it’s exaggerated, silly.

“It’d better be,” he says, but then he gets all the way to the drivers’ side door and his hand’s digging in his pocket. 

Steve snatches out his wallet and rifles around in it before handing Billy some crumpled bills. “Can you fill up the tank for me?”

Billy puts the cash into the pocket of his sweatpants. “Yeah, no problem.”

“And like,” Steve goes on-- “don’t think you have to go right back home or anything. You can drive wherever, do whatever. Just--”

“Five o’ clock?” Billy looks at him wide-eyed, like it’s not the one hundredth time Steve’s gonna mention it. But Steve laughs, and he says _ see you later_, and Billy ignores the flip-flop his tummy does when Harrington hits him with that smile. 

Getting on the open road has Billy feeling better than he has in sixteen months. He puts the Beemer’s windows down, and once he moves the radio off of Harrington’s shitty pop music, he’s in a really good place. He’s forgotten how much he loves driving, the low thrum of wheels against smooth concrete, the growl of the engine when he revs it up, and its purr when he gets its speed sitting pretty. 

It’s here and now that Billy realises-- properly, for the first time-- that he’s thankful for Harrington. He’s not really sure what he’d have done if Steve hadn’t stopped that night, hadn’t seen under the tree. Anyone else would’ve left him behind, for sure. Billy will never not be surprised that Steve _ didn’t_\-- Billy’s not stupid. Even when he had first come to Hawkins, Steve hadn’t been impressed with him. Billy had ensured, very efficiently that he didn’t hold a place in Steve’s heart. If anyone had done the shit to Billy that he had done to Steve, he would’ve gotten back into his car and left. If anyone had ever put their hands on Billy, he’d have taken the time to spit on them before he ditched them under that tree in the dark. 

Steve had rescued him. Steve had brought him home. Steve bought him clothes, and he woke him up from a nightmare and handed him a bunch of money so he could drive and drive and feel a glimmer of his old self. Billy got drunk and cussed at Steve, and hit Steve in the face when he woke Billy up. Steve knew Billy was a fag, and he didn’t care. Well, that’s not entirely true. He cared. He cared about _ Billy_. He forgave him, or something. 

Billy parks in front of the family video at 4:55 PM, stomach full and heart settled. There are one and a half pizzas in the back seat of the car: one pepperoni fresh out of the oven, one red pepper and feta and bacon nearing just about room temperature. Billy sits in the driver’s seat and dicks around with the radio until Steve opens the passenger door at 5:10.

Billy’s halfway to a smirk when he turns to tell Harrington that he’s late, but the joke dies on his lips when he sees Steve’s face. He looks worse than this morning, stress coming off of him in waves. He, like, throws himself into the passenger seat and before Billy asks him if he wants to drive instead, Steve says,

“Take me home, please.”

Billy frowns and chews his lip and nods, and shifts out of park. 

The ride home is quiet. Getting inside is worse. Weird. Billy tells Steve there’s pizza, and he’s like _ oh, cool_, and just kind of floats upstairs. Billy’s left standing at the bottom of the steps feeling kind of lost, wondering if Steve’s gonna come back down or tell him to come up or stay up there forever or eat or what. 

Billy has a couple more slices of pizza and watches the NBC movie by himself downstairs, figures Steve needs to be alone. He hears… lots of footsteps upstairs, though, sees the lights turn on and off and then on, on, on. Billy sees them shining down the steps, down the hall into his room. He sees them under his door, and through the crack he leaves open just in case Steve calls for him. 

Billy’s shocked awake by a hand over his mouth. His eyes snap open and he’s blinded by the lights on in his room. He pushes blindly, growls at the silhouette above him. 

“Shh, shh shh-- Billy, It’s okay. It’s just me.”

“What the fuck,” Billy says, muffled around Steve’s palm. Steve’s crouched close, whispering. Billy feels lips brush against his ear, and he shudders. 

“We have to go upstairs,” He slips his hand from Billy’s mouth and lays a finger across his own lips. “Whisper. We have to be really quiet, okay?”

Billy frowns, nods. “What’s going on?” His voice is low but it rumbles in his chest. Steve flinches at the sound. 

“_Monsters_,” Steve hisses. His voice shakes, even in a whisper.

Billy is suddenly very awake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I totally forget about the January first update? Yes I did. Thanks for your patience. We are now back to your regularly scheduled updates once every Wednesday until the inevitable event of me turning back into a hot mess instead of a mess approx 145-150 degrees farenheit and safe to serve.


	18. eighteen.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy helps out.

Billy’s in high alert. He’s sneaking-in-past-Neil-after-curfew stealthy, and he stays close to Harrington as they head upstairs. There’s not even a single light in the house that’s not on. Little lamps shine from the corners of already well-lit rooms. 

Steve’s room is a mess. There’s paper everywhere, what must be half of a notebook torn from its spirals, scrawled on, crumpled up. There are sheets of paper on his end table, all blank, but torn out. There’s a textbook on the bed that Billy remembers from grade eleven science class, and paper piled on that, too. 

Steve closes the door behind Billy, and he presses the other boy towards the bed until he sits. From here Billy can see the inside of Steve’s closet: There’s one of those heavy duty camping flashlights inside, chasing the dark between the clothes. Light streams out from beneath the bed.

“Steve?” Billy asks. Harrington startles, hits his hip off of the bedframe. 

“Shit,” Billy hisses. He reaches a hand out, drops it. “Sorry. Sorry.”

Steve walks around the room, touches the flashlights, the lamps, the light switches. 

“They’ll come,” he says, very matter of fact. Billy frowns. The paper on the textbook is full of pen, writing and scratched out words. “They’ll come if they hear us. But they don’t like the light, so if they come tonight--”

Steve takes one step, two. Picks up a baseball bat that’s been leaning against his end table, and he swings it once. Twice. Billy hears it slicing through the air. He sees the nails hammered in, crosses his legs. 

“Steve,” he whispers. Steve stops mid-swing. He puts the bat down, runs his fingers through his hair. “_ Steve _.”

His gaze is hard and bright. 

“‘D you sleep last night?” Billy asks. Steve shakes his head. 

“What about the night before?”

Steve’s back to swinging the bat, whip, whip, whip, through the air. 

“No,” he says eventually. Billy sighs. He picks up the textbook, the paper on top.

“No, what--” Steve looks shocked when he hears his own voice, loud in the night. “Don’t move those. I need those.”

“You need to sleep,” says Billy. He gets up on his knees and scoots towards Steve, puts the papers on the end table near him. He’s aware of big dark eyes, watching him. Steve’s still holding the bat, though his arms hang at his side. Billy is careful with the papers. 

Billy scoots back, pulls the comforter off of Steve’s part of the bed. He pats the Farrah Fawcett spray-scented pillow. “Come lie down.”

Steve’s shaking his head, even as he looks almost longingly at his bed. “Can’t,” he says. “I’ve gotta stay up. I’m…” He goes to the window, grips the bat tight. He opens the blinds just a little, just enough so he can peer into the dark. 

“I’m staying up,” Billy tells him. “Look, just… lie down for an hour, okay?”

Steve shakes his head. He does this, like, full-body shudder and turns around, his back to the window.

“Half an hour. C’mon, Steve.”

“No,” he murmurs. “No, I can’t.”

“I’ll keep watch. We’ll take turns. You know, like soldiers and shit.” He crawls back towards Steve, gets off the bed. Billy eyes the bat warily but when he reaches out to take it, Steve just kind of… lets it go.

Billy puts the bat on the floor, tilts it up against the end table with the paper and the textbook. He grabs the very end of Steve’s sleeve and pulls. 

Steve steps back. “I can’t,” he says. His hands come up, two fists tangled in his hair, “What if they come in?”

“The bat’s right by the bed,” Billy soothes, as best he can. “If anything gets in here, I’ll kick its ass.”

Steve shakes his head again. Billy winces as he pulls at his own hair. 

“The Mindflayer. What if it--” Steve’s breath comes hard and quick. “What if _ you _…” Billy thinks of the night that Steve had the bad dream. The look Steve gives him makes him think of back then, and it makes Billy’s heart ache. 

“Five minutes,” Billy pleads, “Just close your eyes for five minutes.I’ll keep watch, and we’ll be safe. You don’t even have to go to sleep.”

When Billy touches Steve’s arm, he can feel him shake. 

It takes _ forever _ for him to get Steve into the bed. Billy promises him, over and over, that he’ll stay awake. That he’ll wake Steve up in _ five minutes_, and not a second more. Even when he’s lying down, his eyes are saucer wide. 

“If you don’t close your eyes, it doesn’t count,” Billy tells him. He says it softly, isn’t quite sure Steve hears him. 

“I have to write the letter for Eleven,” he makes like he’s going to get up and Billy grabs his arm. 

Steve looks at him. “I have to send it,” he explains, “She has to know they’re coming.”

“We’ll send it tomorrow, first thing in the morning,” Billy says. Steve goes on. 

“They hear through the phones, in the upside down.”

Billy pulls the blanket over him, over his slacks and his Family Video polo.

“Five minutes,” he says. He runs his fingers through Steve’s hair, feels him tremble. 

“You’ll stay here, right? You’ll wake me up.”

“Five minutes,” Billy says. Steve tries. He really does. 

Maybe thirty seconds pass. Steve’s eyes shoot open and he gasps and grabs at Billy. Clings tight. 

“I’ve got you,” Billy says, lets him cling. He feels Steve’s fingers digging into his arms, and wonders if there will be bruises tomorrow. It won’t matter, he decides. 

“You’ve got me,” Steve parrots. He rolls to his side, towards Billy. They make a little shadow between them, in the bed. 

“Five minutes.” Billy watches Steve’s eyes droop, snap open. Droop again. He whimpers. 

Billy scoots towards him, closes up the little patch of dark. He pulls Steve close, so he doesn’t have to work so hard to hold on. Steve hides his face in Billy’s chest, and Billy feels his breath come quick, shivery.

“Close your eyes,” Billy tells him. 

Five minutes later, they’re both asleep. 


	19. zero.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Susan makes a choice.

**July 5th, 1985**

Susan Hargrove can feel the frustration rolling off of her husband in waves. She’s used to this-- used to cataloguing his moods, telling the difference between an anger that can be soothed with beer or sex or just by staying out of his way. This is one of the latter moods, and it’s clear why-- Max hadn’t come home from her sleepover. Billy hadn’t made it back by curfew. He’s losing control over his little family and that drives him up the wall. 

Susan can’t remember the last time she was awake at two in the morning. She’s sipping at her third cup of coffee, a serving of the fresh batch she had made for Neil not thirty minutes ago. He’s pacing, his own mug untouched on the kitchen table, coffee black. Susan’s always taken hers with a little milk and a spoonful of sugar. 

Max is brought back around half-past three. She steps out of the back of a cop car, red-faced and looking like she’s trying very hard not to cry. She fails once she sees Susan come out of the house. 

“Momma,” she sobs. Susan opens her arms and her thirteen-year-old fills them. God. Susan hasn’t heard Max call her that in _ages_. 

“What’s wrong, baby?” she murmurs. She can hear Neil yelling at the police. _ Where’s that good-for-nothing little bastard_, Susan hears. She feels her daughter start to cry harder. She wishes Neil didn’t yell so much. 

**July 7th, 1985**

The police had told Neil that… well. They hadn’t told him anything. They had said that they could only tell him what they were cleared to tell him, couldn't say anything about where they had picked up Max or if they had even seen Billy around. Susan had been afraid that Neil would hit them. But so far, Susan had only ever seen Neil hit one person. 

The police had said that they’d call Neil as soon as they knew more. Neil had called the sheriff’s office instead, over and over, from the time they opened until they sent a pair of officers over to tell them that if he didn’t stop calling, he’d be put in jail for harassment. Susan, instead, had gone to the general store and bought one of those newfangled answering machines. 

There hadn’t been a point to it, in the end. This was better, Susan thought, because she didn’t really know how to use an answering machine. Susan had taken a few days off work to stay home with Max, and that is when the call comes in. Susan doesn’t answer the phone at first. She’s so used to Neil striding over from wherever he is-- the opposite end of the house, even-- to answer the phone. He does it the same way every time: _ Neil Hargrove; how can I help you? _

Susan answers the phone on the third ring. “Susan May-- Hargrove; how can I help you?”

It’s the Hawkins Department of Energy, which is in and of itself odd. It’s even worse once they’ve confirmed that she’s the mother-- stepmother-- of Billy Hargrove, and they tell her what’s wrong with him. 

She doesn’t understand very much. Medicine, science, had never been anything she was interested in. Now that they’re applying it to her stepson, it makes even less sense. All she can understand is _broken_, and _doctor’s bills _and how will they even begin to afford this?

It’s awful. It’s awful. And they talk and talk and talk and her head spins. 

“We can’t afford this,” she says. The Department of Energy representative stops talking. “We won’t be able to afford this. And he turns eighteen soon. And _he _won’t be able to afford this. We can’t-- Mr. Hargrove won’t--”

Susan is sure that Neil loves his son. Properly? No. Healthily? Definitely not. But the things she’s seen Neil do to him, the things she’s heard… sometimes she wonders. Sometimes, when she digs deep, she wonders where Neil’s cutoff is. Where his love for Billy ends. 

“Mrs. Hargrove,” the Department of Energy representative says, “We can meet with you tomorrow. We can discuss some options.”

She can’t, Susan tells them. Neil drops her off at work, since she got rid of her car for the move. He picks her back up.

“We’ll send a vehicle to get you from work,” the representative says. “Nine thirty okay?”

**July 8th, 1985**

The Department of Energy vehicle looks just like a normal car. Susan had kind of expected it to be one of those big white windowless vans, with _ Department of Energy _written on the side. But it’s just a normal car, a little dark blue Chevrolet Vega, something that Susan wouldn’t mind owning herself. 

The Department of Energy doesn’t turn out to be much of a department of anything. They’re on the road for about forty minutes and they end up in Muncie, at the Indiana University Memorial Hospital. This makes sense, since Billy is very, very sick.

There’s a lot of walking, a lot of key cards. Susan loses track of all the stairs they take and turns they make down different hallways. She probably couldn’t find her way back out if you paid her. Plus, the farther they walk, the more she thinks about Billy. She wonders how bad he’ll look. She wonders what parts of him are broken. It makes sense that she wouldn’t focus on where she’s going. 

It feels like forever until they get to billy’s room. She knows it’s Billy’s room because the Department of Energy representative stops and touches her shoulder gently and lets her know that she can wait for Dr. Owens to come in with her, or she can go in right now if she wants time with Billy on her own. The representative tells her there’s a chair inside, if she wants to sit. The representative says that they’ve made sure that Billy is comfortable even if he doesn’t look so good. The representative says _medically induced coma_, and says it’s the best way to make sure he’s alright. 

“I want to see him,” Susan says. She’s been working and worrying and wondering _what if_, and so what if she needs to sit in the chair as soon as she sees Billy, so what if she feels her eyes fill up with tears? It’s a totally normal reaction. 

She’s crying when the doctor comes. 

“What if he doesn’t make it?” she asks. His face is so pale, and he looks so small with all of those wires and tubes. They cut his hair short, short, short, and it’s like he came home from the army, lost a war. 

“What if he doesn’t make it, and we owe all this money? Or, or--”

Or worse. What if he _ did _make it. What if they owed all that money, what if _ Neil _owed all that money, and Billy had to live in that house with him, that man who Susan wonders where his love for Billy ends. 

“I can tell this is hard for you,” the doctor says, “I can make you an offer.” This offer, the doctor says, is only for very special cases. He thinks that Susan has a very special case. 

Susan doesn’t understand very much. She faces the document when it is handed to her, but her vision blurs. She listens, though. There are words that are long: debt absorption. Exchange of guardianship. Voluntary transfer of custody. 

“We can do tests without having to ask you permission for every single one. He’ll be under our care, so any monetary concerns will be left to us. When he is released, we’ll bring him home.”

“Or wherever he wants to go,” Susan says. She wonders, if Billy lives, if he’ll come home. 

She wonders if he would know he’d have a choice. 

Susan thinks about Neil. Susan thinks about how she can feel Neil’s moods, wonders how it would be to know that his anger could only be soothed by the crack of his palm or the thud of his fist against your skin. Susan thinks about Jacob Mayfield, and how he had moods too, and how she couldn’t leave him even when his moods left bruises and broken bones. After everything, Jacob had been the one who left, and Susan knows that when Neil’s moods can only be soothed by putting his hands on her, she won’t be able to leave then, either. 

Billy had a car. Billy looked grown. Billy had followed them in the Camaro, with all of his clothes and his music, for the thirty total hours to Hawkins Indiana without even letting another vehicle get between them. Billy’s gotten punished for everything, anything under the sun, but Billy’s never run away from home. Billy’s always come back to his father. 

“He was a good young man,” Owens tells her. He holds a copy of the documents, a pen. “He rescued a girl from the fire at Starcourt Mall.” He mentions smoke inhalation, and burns all over his chest and arms. He puts the pen in Susan’s hand. 

**July 9th, 1985**

Susan watches Neil eat. He slices his steak like he has something to prove, like he hated the cow when it was alive and hates it now that it’s dead, too. 

They’re having a special dinner. Just the two of them. Max is sick in bed, and Susan brought her chicken soup earlier in the afternoon. Susan wrings her hands under the table, pinches as the webbing between her left thumb and forefinger. 

“Billy’s _dead_,” Max had told her, when she had put down the soup and pressed the back of her hand against Max’s fevered brow. Max’s voice had shaken and her tears had come fast. 

Susan thinks of this now. The boy in the bed in the hospital in Muncie. Her daughter, weeping for him. 

“I’ve a good mind,” Neil says between bites, “To go right down to the police station and give them a piece of my mind.” He talks about his _good-for-nothing_, _ piece-of-shit son_, and Susan thinks of how badly he must have been hurt, that Max thought he was dead. How badly he must have been hurt, saving someone else. 

“Billy’s dead,” Susan echoes Max. She thinks of his wan face, his short hair, the way he’d never run away. “Billy’s _ dead_.” She channels her daughter, mimics her tears. 

Neil puts his knife down and his fork down. “What?” he asks, and his voice does this thing where it shakes, and she almost doesn’t recognize it. 

“I’m sorry,” she sobs. She’s surprised at how easy they come. Crocodile tears. She remembers, from high school, that mother crocodiles defend their eggs for up to three months. She remembers that, when the babies hatch, the mother carries them to freedom between her sharp teeth. 

Later that night, Neil lets her hold him. 

If he cries, she does not hear a sound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FIRST AND FOREMOST I have to actually thank my beta reader [trashmage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashmage/), who is a 10/10 human and a true joy to be around. He gives the best feedback and I always feel better for having him read everything. 
> 
> ALSO I HAVE LEARNED that it's not the best for me to update on Wednesdays because I have choir until 9:30 PM??? and half the time when I get home I have no spoons. So we're going to move our official update date to Friday (Saturday), where our real goal is Friday evening, but it's also likely that once placement hits in late March it might bleed over to Saturday morning as well. 
> 
> Thanks, guys, for understanding. If you've stuck with me this long, I very much appreciate you. Please imagine receiving the crispest of high fives.


	20. nineteen.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve wakes up.

Steve wakes up from the absolute best sleep of his entire life. 

Sure, he’s a little sweaty. It’s hot. He fell asleep in his work uniform and _ socks_, and his work slacks are, like, super stiff and uncomfortable. He can hear them when he moves his legs, kind of… crunching together. It feels like he fell asleep with wrapping paper around his knees. 

But it’s the best sleep he’s had in his life. 

He almost immediately knows why. He kind of hates it. But fuck if he doesn’t feel right at home, wrapped up in Billy Hargrove’s arms. 

Steve should get out of the bed, he decides. He’s not entirely sure why the two of them are all wrapped up like this, but it feels like he’s taking advantage. He’s awake and Billy is asleep. And that means that Billy can’t say, not really, if he wants to keep holding Steve. 

Steve cheats a little. He dozes. He can’t fall asleep for real-- he keeps thinking about how sweat is prickling under his Family Video shirt, keeps thinking about the wrapping paper feel between his knees. But the weight of Billy’s arm steadies him, and the rhythm of his breathing centres him, and he feels so safe and so calm. 

He’s not sure how long it is until Billy stirs a bit, shifts, makes his little frown. And his eyes are so blue when he opens them.

“Fuck,” Billy grunts. His whole body stiffens and guilt immediately crawls up Steve’s throat when he feels him start to pull away. 

“Sorry,” Billy says, and there’s a moment where Steve’s confused. 

“It’s okay,” he replies immediately. And it is-- it really is. He wants to reach out, pull the other boy back towards him. He tries so, so hard not to. He can’t believe how hard he has to try. 

Billy freezes, arm sort of hovering above Steve’s side, already cooling from the space between them. 

“Is it?” he asks, and Steve’s so caught up in what he could _ mean _by this, that he doesn’t answer right away. 

A beat goes by. Two. Billy’s flush crawls from his face all the way down his neck, his chest. He pulls away. Rolls out of his side of the bed. 

“Billy--”

“Whatever,” he says.

Steve sits up. When he reaches out, his fingers almost graze Billy’s arm. He thinks he can feel the heat from his skin. 

“Billy, hey--”

“There’s pizza in the fridge,” he says. And then he’s gone, out of the room. Steve hears him, soft steps and the slow creak down the stairs.

Steve looks at the door that Billy walked out of. He feels his jaw working, like he’s about to say something, to the suddenly empty other-side-of-the-bed. 

“...Oh my god,” he decides. It sounds louder than it should, talking to himself. Like, what the fuck is wrong with him? “Oh my _ God _ .” He thinks of Billy’s arm around him. He thinks of Billy’s _ face_. The expression he made when he thought that _ Steve didn’t want Billy to hold him_.

“Holy shit,” Steve says. Because yeah, he fucked up. Without a doubt. But _ Holy shit_, did Billy want to hold him?

He needs to figure this out. Bounce this off of someone and figure out what was going on. Robin could--

“_ Oh my god _.”

Work. Fucking work, and he’s _ not there_, and his uniform is all slept in and fucking _ nasty_, and _ Billy’s face _ and paper all over his floor, and on his bedside table. 

He’s never seen this shit before in his life. It’s like someone left him the longest reminder with the worst handwriting, and when he gets up to go downstairs it’s only ‘cause it says **ELEVEN** that he grabs the page and takes it with him. 

He skims it as he makes his way to the living room. By the time he gets there, he just… sits heavy on the couch. 

His hands shake. No wonder Eleven always called him when he wrote to her, no wonder she was always so quiet when she called. Jesus. He sounded like a madman. 

Steve spends a long time looking at the paper in his hands, even if he doesn’t read it. 

Eventually, he calls work--

“Family Video, how may I help you?”

And thank _ God _ it’s Robin. 

“Hey, it’s Steve.”

There’s a shocked sound and a bit of ruffling on the other end of the line. 

“What the _ hell_, Harrington,” Robin hisses from the other side. “You know how hard I had to work to brainwash Keith into thinking that you had asked for the day off? Your cousins are up from Milwaukee, by the way.” 

“Sorry,” he says, and he sounds genuinely apologetic. This, of course, concerns Robin immediately. 

“Do you feel any less shit than yesterday?”

“Kinda,” Steve shrugs, even though Robin can’t see him. “I, like, slept. But I think I’m kinda… fucked.”

“More fucked than usual?” She says. 

“Not… not really.” Steve leans back on the couch. “But I realized some shit. And I…”

He hears the sounds of the video store while he thinks. It’s usually not busy in the late morning slash early afternoon, and there are maybe one or two voices in the background. There’s the beep-beep-beep of videos getting scanned back in or out or whatever. 

He sighs deep. Rubs at his eyes. “I… maybe… may have kind of told Billy not to cuddle me?”

Steve can _ hear _ Robin’s disapproving stare _ through the phone_. 

“...What’s wrong with you?” she asks, like, after a year. Jesus.

“I don’t know,” Steve tries and fails to not sound like he’s whining. 

“Fair,” Robin’s not even _ trying _ to comfort him. 

“So…” she continues, “What are you gonna do?”

“I called you, didn’t I?” 

She makes one of those buzzer sounds, like when you guess the wrong answer in Family Feud. “What are you gonna do, Steve?”

“I’m gonna sit here. And whine at you.” And hate himself, he doesn’t say. And think about Billy and his _ face. _

“Um, no?” Robin speaks like the solution is the most obvious thing in the world. “Go tell him you wanna cuddle.”

“I’m _ not-- _ !” He stops when he realizes he’s shouting, starts again-- “I’m not gonna tell _ Billy Hargrove _ that I wanna _ cuddle _.”

“But he wants to cuddle you.” Steve doesn’t know what to say. Robin, of course, uses it as permission to keep talking. “So? Go. Tell. Him.”

Steve groans. He flops back on the couch. His shitty letter from last night floats to the floor. “You know,” he says, “There was a moment. The moment’s gone. I fucked up the moment. You can’t… re-moment.”

“Steve--”

“And _ besides _.” He knows he interrupts her. He does it on purpose. “He was only doing it ‘cause…”

He swallows a little heavy, chews at his bottom lip. The paper’s grown sweaty in his hand. 

“Last night. I was pretty fucked up.”

He’s pretty sure he can hear Robin frowning through the phone. 

“Like, drunk?”

Steve shakes his head. “No,” he corrects himself. “I… I wasn’t sleeping. And I… I think I freaked him out.”

“How’d _ you _ freak _ him _ out?” 

Steve shrugs, bites his lip. “I dunno. I think… I think he felt sorry for me or something. I, like… I wrote this letter. It’s. It’s really bad, Robin.”

“How is it _ bad _?”

Steve sighs. He runs his fingers partway through his hair and squeezes tight. “I… It just--” 

“Shit, hold on-- I’m sorry ma’am, we don’t have _ American Tail _ yet, it only hit theatres… ‘m sorry, Steve. Keith’s giving me the stink eye. I’ve gotta go back to work.” For the record, Robin does sound terribly sorry. He appreciates that, at least. 

“Yeah, yeah.” He tries not to sound sorry, too. “You go look busy.”

“Tell you what,” she says, hurriedly. “I’ll come over after work, okay? You can show me this… letter.”

“...Um. Yeah. Okay.”

“Geez, don’t sound so excited.” Steve hears Keith calling for her in the background. “See you later, loser.”


	21. twenty.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy goes to work.

Billy kind of… gets out of dodge real fast. 

As soon as he escapes from Steve’s room and the palatable tension left over from his stupid, _ stupid _ question, he gives himself, like, three minutes to change-- slide himself into his black pants and his shitty hoodie/windbreaker combination. He grabs a couple of slices of pizza when he passes the kitchen, and folds them, cold, into a sandwich, holds them between his teeth when he pulls on and does up his shoes. 

He’s on his way out when he pauses. Steve’s jacket’s on a hook by the door, and his eyes dart upstairs for a moment before he grabs the pack of cigarettes out of Steve’s pocket, taps a couple into his palm. But then he thinks of Steve-- god, _ Steve_. Sleepy, warm. Confused, when Billy pretty much asked if it was alright to _ hold him_. 

It’s fucked. It’s fucking ridiculous. _ He’s _ fucked, fucked up. That’s what Neil would say. You thought he was a faggot, just like you? Or he’d wait to talk, wait until all of Billy’s fight had been knocked out of him. He’d say Billy would end up in a ditch somewhere with someone who _ wouldn’t _ stop hitting him, someone who didn’t love him like Neil did, because that was what happened to people like Billy.

Billy wonders if the ditches in Hawkins are deep enough to keep out the cold November air, when Steve tells him he has to leave. 

The head mechanic is happy to see Billy, but that’s only because he doesn’t know what Billy is. He smiles, and he tells Billy his name, and he shakes Billy’s hand firmly because he doesn’t know where it’s been. Billy wonders if McCarthy -- that’s his name, Swainson McCarthy-- would be so friendly with him, let him in the garage, start him out on inventory just to get his bearings, if he knew what Billy was. That Billy had asked to hold Steve Harrington this morning. 

McCarthy gives him a chair to sit in, but Billy makes himself stand, even when his legs start to shake. His work is pristine, and when he double-checks, it’s immaculate. True, Billy would rather be getting his hands dirty. Inventory’s not complex enough for it to keep him from thinking about Steve, and how much he must regret giving Billy a chance. But he’s almost sure that this is a test, and he at least intends to keep this one thing that was handed to him. 

“Nice work,” McCarthy says, “I had to let a guy go a couple weeks back ‘cause he thought selling parts outta my shop would work better for him than keeping a job. I can’t do all this organization shit when I’m short a hand. Glad you came along.” He grins. 

Billy lets out a surprised pulse of laughter, and it almost comes easy. 

McCarthy has Billy sweep. He has him mop the supply room and the front room, with the reception desk. He makes him organize the receipts, work requisitions, and order forms-- sort them into piles based on year, sort them by date and time. When the last car of the day makes its way out of the garage, McCarthy comes up to Billy and asks if he would mind staying after closing. 

“No, sir!” Billy states, and McCarthy does this big laugh again, like he’s fond of Billy. 

“Sir’s my father,” he says, “Wanna mop out the garage?”

When his shift officially finishes, Billy’s a little bit closer to content-- the satisfaction of a job well done-- and then when McCarthy tucks, like, thirty bucks into his hand. 

“Holy shit,” he says. “I mean-- thank you.” _ Holy shit_. This is more than he ever made for half a day at Hawkins Pool. 

“Same time Monday?” McCarthy asks. 

“Yeah, of course.”

The last licks of dusk are fading from the sky as Billy steps from the garage. He thinks about Steve and how, when night falls, he always gives the shadows furtive glances, always stays out of the dark. Billy thinks about how Steve is a different person once the sun sets all the way, the line of his back stiff with vigilance. His eyes tight with fear. 

Of course, thinking of Steve means that Billy drags his feet. He’s in no rush-- _ Billy’s _ not afraid of the dark. Billy is afraid of very few things, and the inevitability of one of those things can be prolonged by him not going back to Harrington’s just yet. 

The night is cold. It’s cold and it doesn’t take long before Billy is shivering, and he’s kicking himself for not grabbing the jacket that he had been gifted. It’s on the floor, in his-- in the Harringtons' guest room, with half of the other stuff he owns. The rest is in his brown paper bag, with the number of the man who lives at his old house and works at the library, and Dr. Owens’ business card. He hopes the card doesn’t blow away, when Steve dumps all his shit out of the house, on the front lawn. He hopes that the ink doesn’t get smeared away, and that his inhaler doesn't sink if Steve throws all of his things into the pool instead. He hopes that Dr. Owens picks up when he calls, can maybe track where he’s calling from before his legs give out, can maybe think of some more experiments that Billy can help with before he drops him off somewhere where no one’s waiting for him.

When he walks up the driveway to the Harrington’s, his stomach’s full of trepidation. His hands are cold even though he’s jammed them in his pocket. He’s rubbing his thumb against one of the sharp little corners of the cigarette boxes he’s stashed in there-- He’d stopped at a gas station on the way back, grabbed a couple packs of the smokes Steve likes, grabbed a shitty plastic lighter for himself to keep, after everything’s said and done. 

The lights are on inside. Billy shortens his steps and tries out his shitty lighter-- starts up a cigarette. It takes him a couple of attempts; his hands are shaking, and he tells himself it’s only because he’s still cold. 

He’s gonna need the packs to last, he decides, since he’ll need the money he earns from the garage to pay for another place to stay. So he cuts himself off at three-- no, four cigarettes. And then he goes up to the door. And then he raises his hand to knock. And then a lot of things happen very quickly:

One: His knuckles only just brush the door, because someone on the other side is opening it up. So it swings inward, and he drops his hand and he takes a step back because _ it’s fucking Steve Harrington_. 

Two: His eyes narrow. There’s Steve, and there’s a girl behind him, and Billy’s not stupid. He _ knows _ girls, knows that this could mean one of several things. 

  1. She’s a gossiper. Steve brought her over to talk about What Billy Did and she’ll cheer Steve on when they fight.
  2. She’s girlfriend material. Steve brought her over for a distraction, but maybe he gets talkative after handjobs, or maudlin after he has to watch her spit his come into a napkin, and that’s why he told her about What Billy Did. And she’ll cry when she watches Steve hit Billy for the first second third time, but she won’t look away.
  3. She’s wife material. Steve fucked her on Billy’s side of the bed, and when she sees Steve pummel Billy into the ground, she’ll slink, quiet, into the house. 

Three: Steve looks pissed. Really pissed. And he’s coming at Billy fast, and Billy can feel his whole body stiffen. Steve’s arms come up and Billy’s learned through time and punishment not to flinch, but he’s pretty sure he does it anyway. He’s out of practice, and Steve looks so, so angry, and Billy knows there’s nothing nothing nothing he can do to stop it when Steve comes up and-- oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. Steve comes up and he--

Four: "What were you thinking?" Steve shrills. Tension crawls up Billy's spine. "It's been dark for _ hours_," Steve huffs, rubs at his eyes. 

What? 

"I thought you--" Steve swallows hard. "What if you--?"

This doesn't make sense. It doesn't _ make sense_. 

Five: It takes a little while. Steve presses out a breath, takes in another one, holds it. The movements are very familiar to Billy. Steve lets the breath out long and slow and shuddery. He steps close. His voice drops, just a bit. "Let me drive you next time. Home, at least. Don't ever do that again, okay?"

"...Yeah,” Billy frowns. He doesn’t understand. “Okay."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I forget to post this Friday? Yes. Did I start posting this on Saturday afternoon and then get distracted? Yes. Thanks for sticking with me, guys. ^_^;;


	22. twenty one.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robin looks.

Robin remembers Billy. 

It would be hard to forget him, even though he was a year below them. Girls at Hawkins High had fawned over him-- even Tammy Thompson had taken her eyes off of Steve for the few seconds it took her to give Billy the once-over. He was small-town famous, with his fast car and his loud music and his shirt always open halfway down his chest. _ Always_. 

It’s not who she sees when Steve opens the door. 

The person standing on Steve’s front porch looks… hunted. Afraid, in that late winter coyote sort of way-- thin and a little dangerous. Or previously dangerous. She sees how his whole body tenses up when Steve takes a step towards him. Yes-- previously dangerous.

Steve’s shouting at him. _ What were you thinking_. He’s gesturing large and BIlly kind of just… pulls into himself. 

Robin takes her coat off. They were about to go and look for BIlly-- Steve had gotten more and more worked up as the sun had set. Maybe he’s late getting off of work, he had said. Maybe he’s pissed at me. Maybe he’s taking the long way home. Maybe he got lost. Maybe the gate’s open again, and the Mindflayer’s picking its teeth with his bones. 

“Jesus Christ, Steve,” Robin had said. Steve was wound up. Tight like a spring. If he just sat there doing nothing, he was bound to snap. “Let’s just drive around. Maybe he stopped somewhere to buy something, I dunno.”

So they had put on their coats, opened the door. There he was. 

Steve makes Billy sit at the kitchen island. Billy’s face is pale and his nose and the tips of his ears are red and Steve’s decided that he’s cold, so he’s brewing coffee at six-thirty P.M.. Billy makes no move to take off his ugly windbreaker or the hoodie underneath it, and he sits on his hands. It’s a weird posture-- hunched over and, Robin thinks, pissed off. Billy was never in any of her classes but Robin remembers how he used to hold himself: chest out, shoulders back, grinning at girls across the gym during assembly or leering at Steve across the hall before Chem. Proud, confident. Cocky, even after he had given Steve a face full of bruises early November, 1984.

“The fuck are you looking at,” Billy growls at her, and kind of glances up towards Steve. Something in Robin kickstarts her emotions to what could only be described as _thrilled _ when she realises that Billy’s checking to make sure that Steve didn’t hear him being an asshole. 

“You’ve changed a bit. Since high school.” Robin tries to sound friendly instead of suspicious. 

“Fuck off,” Billy hisses. “Why are you even here?”

“I’m Steve’s friend.” Maybe she didn’t try hard enough. “Why are _ you _ here?” 

Billy’s face does about four different things in the span of two seconds. Robin feels a little guilty when one of those things is _ hurt_, but then Billy’s face settles, again, on pissed and he opens his mouth. 

One of them is saved when Steve turns around. She’s not sure who.

“Robin,” Steve says, and Billy’s mouth snaps shut. “Do you want coffee too? We only have milk.”

“Milk’s great,” she beams. She can feel the heat of Billy’s glower on her, and she wants to laugh-- not meanly, not really. Given the context, she’s pretty sure that Billy’s pouting. 

Robin’s always been one for people watching. She likes people watching even more than she likes teasing Steve, which ranks fairly high on her list of likes. Robin watches Steve make Billy drink the coffee. It’s funny, she thinks, how he hovers. He asks Billy if it’s sweet enough, and if it needs any more milk. Every time Steve speaks to him, Billy gets a little less pissed-looking. She watches BIlly wind down, look less like he wants to kill the ceramic mug in front of him, look less like he wants to curse at her. Robin’s almost one hundred percent sure that it’s the opposite effect that Steve had on Billy back in high school, given that Steve hadn’t been the only one who’d come to school with bruises in early November, 1984. 

Despite the way that the tension eases out of him, Billy seems eager to leave the kitchen. _ You happy now_? He says to Steve, once he’s done his coffee, and he goes to put his cup in the sink.

There’s something off about his walk, Robin realizes. He’s shuffling towards the sink with the cup and as soon as he reaches his destination, he grips the counter, holds on for dear life. He stands at the sink, white-knuckled. He looks down into the coffee mug like it could impart the secrets of the universe to him. 

Steve notices this. When he takes Robin’s cup to the sink, ever the gentleman, Robin sees Steve frown. He leans towards Billy, concerned. 

“Hey, what--?”

Billy shakes his head. Steve leans in close. 

It happens again. Robin can’t hear what either boy is saying, but even though Billy’s hands grip tight to the counter, when Steve speaks quietly to him she watches the tense line of Billy’s shoulders relax, ever so slightly. 

Steve’s hand shoots out, hovers over the small of Billy’s back. He hesitates, looks towards Robin. “I’ll meet you in the living room,” he says. 

She wants to stay. She wants to keep watching them, more than anything. But she tamps the urge down. She sucks it up and gets up and goes, makes her way to the living room, sits on the couch. Something crunches as she walks, and she picks up a sheet of paper from the ground and strains to listen.

There are quiet murmurs from the kitchen. She recognizes Steve’s voice, marvels at how different Billy sounds when he’s not growling out profanity. _ Can I _ \--? she hears Steve say, and _ Here, let me _\--. There’s shifting, and a grunt, and uneven footsteps. 

Robin looks down when they pass, on their way to the guest room. She looks at the paper in her hands, reads _ Hey Eleven_, and wonders at the quick, messy scrawl. Even still, she looks out of the corner of her eye. She pauses from reading to focus on what she sees in her peripheral vision, to watch Steve support BIlly, holding him up as he clings, legs shaking as they move slowly, ever so slowly down the hall. 


	23. twenty two.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve says something important.

_Hey eleven_

_Nights getting longer and longer and the days are so short light goes out so quick I keep them on inside and it keeps the dark out but what if they come anyway? what if they take him again? He died for you eleven [blood] on the floor all over the floor all over the mall and his white shirt. and I didn’t even try to help. [i’ll] keep him safe. keep him safe. in the night. safe in the light [inside] but please help. Lights go out soon and [what] if he goes too? [DEMIGORGONS] are coming! i can [hear] them growling [stomachs] growling outside even [though] the pool lights are on they smell the blood an [maybe] Billy still smells like blood? What if they find him and take him away? Sorry to bother you. but I need your help now. Thank you. _

_Love steve_

Steve gets to the living room, and Robin’s reading the letter. 

“Oh,” he says. He has to swallow to get his heart out of his throat.

“Oh,” Robin agrees. She chews her lip and Steve shifts back and forth as he stands. 

“Robin, I--”

“Are you scared like this? A lot?” Robin doesn’t look up from the letter. Steve’s never seen her cry, but he imagines this is what she’d sound like if she was about to. 

Steve half-shrugs. He sits on the couch and he just… lets her read it. She takes a long time. He wonders if she reads it more than once. 

He looks over Robin’s shoulder. _ Hey Eleven, _ the letter starts. He makes his way through another sentence before he stops, looks away. It’s pitiful. It sounds too pitiful.

“Is this what you’re thinking about when you don’t talk to me at work?” Robin’s still looking at the paper. Steve swallows. 

“Sometimes,” he says. He thinks about what he remembers, from the day before yesterday, when monsters filled his head. Their slick muscled bodies and little dagger teeth. The cloying rot smell. Billy, sitting in the ruins of the Camaro. Billy, prone on the Starcourt floor. 

“You know you can talk to me. When you feel like this.” Robin’s eyes are red-rimmed. Steve’s stomach clenches, just a little. 

“I know,” he says. “I will,” he lies. 

Robin looks at him, sadly. She asks if she can give him a hug, and then hugs him like eight times before she says she has to go home. 

“I’m going in early for extra hours,” she explains. “I booked a couple days off after Thanksgiving. I _ actually _ have cousins in town.”

“Thanksgiving!” Steve repeats.

Robin raises an eyebrow. “Don’t worry. I haven’t forgotten your little nerd party. Friday the 29th, Day after turkey day. Four P.M. at the Wheelers’. Anything I forgot?”

Steve looks embarrassed and is quiet for long enough that Robin catches on. Her guess is freaky accurate. It’s scary. 

“Billy. Holy shit. You didn’t invite him yet. What the hell?”

Steve does this little half shrug, scrubs at the back of his neck.

“You think he’ll want to come?”

“I think…” Robin’s still holding the letter, and she shakes it at him, “He’s… important. To you. And if you don’t invite him, you’ll spend the whole time thinking about him, and you’ll be super lame.”

“I will not,” Steve lies again, but this time he can feel his face heat up. 

“You will,” Robin insists, and she holds the paper out in front of her. “‘I’ll keep him safe.’ So you’ll keep him safe. But you won’t invite him to Thanksgiving?”

Steve snatches the paper from her hand. Christ. 

“I’ll think about it,” he says. He’s not sure if it’s a lie. 

After Robin leaves, Steve stands for a very long time at the foot of the stairs. 

“What the fuck,” he says into the quiet, and he turns and heads to the guest room.

He can see that the lights are off, but he knocks anyways and opens the door. Billy’s in bed, where Steve left him. The light from the hall gets him right in the face, would have gotten him right in the eyes, if they’d been open. But his eyes are closed, and Steve studies the shadow of his eyelashes on his cheeks. 

“Important,” Steve hums to himself as he stands in the doorway. Billy does this quick little frown-- Steve wouldn’t have seen if he had blinked-- and the furrow in his brow smooths out. 

“Hey,” Steve says, a little louder than he had spoken before. Billy doesn’t move. 

Steve’s like… seventy-five percent sure that BIlly’s pretending to be asleep. Which is weird. It’s so distinctly un-Billy that Steve’s a little concerned. Worried that Billy would pull this passive shit instead of coming right out and telling Steve to fuck off. 

Steve thinks about earlier, when Billy was stuck at the sink, hands locked in a vice grip on the counter. When Steve’s _are you okay? _ was met with Billy’s _ my legs are fucked_, and this tightening of his mouth and his looking down at the kitchen floor. He thinks about earlier still, thinks about the look on Billy’s face when Steve had opened the door and he had seen him and-- yeah. Steve had shouted at him. And he had gestured with his hands and Billy had-- just a little, but still-- Billy had pulled in on himself. Afraid? Steve is not sure, but the more and more he thinks about it, he realizes that Billy must have been _ afraid_. 

“I’m sorry,” Steve says, banking on the seventy-five percent chance that Billy is, in fact, awake. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you when you came home.”

Billy frowns again, just a little. The light from the doorway hits him just between the eyes. 

Steve continues: “I want to invite you to Thanksgiving. It’s gonna be a whole bunch of us.”

The frown deepens. It takes a while, but slowly, slowly Billy opens his eyes. Sort of. He’s squinting. 

“What,” There’s the littlest bit of an edge to his voice, but it’s swallowed up by how quiet he is, “Your girlfriend didn’t wanna go?”

Steve frowns, too. “Girlfriend? I don’t…” He takes a second to think, and then he laughs. “Robin’s not my girlfriend. We’re friends. Just friends. And--” He remembers what she said. _ He’s important to you_. 

“And I’d really like for you to come with me to Thanksgiving. If you want to.”

Billy looks at him. He’s squinting a little less. 

“I’ll think about it,” he says. 

Steve nods. He’ll take it. He’ll take it over pretending to be asleep, even over _ fuck off_. 

He stands in the doorway for a while. He wonders what he looks like to Billy, this awkward, shifting thing in the doorway. A nervous shadow haloed by hallway lights. 

“Billy,” he says, eventually. Billy grunts and Steve scrubs at his own face. “This morning. When I said ‘it’s okay,’ and you--”

Billy’s eyes close again, and his frown is back in full force. “It’s whatever,” he says. “Don’t worry about it.”

Steve huffs out a breath, forces himself to continue-- “I should’ve… Christ. _ Christ_, I’m an idiot.”

Steve steeples his fingers. He closes his eyes too, and takes a deep breath in and lets it really slowly out. He thinks very hard about what he wants to say.

“I. Wanted you to hold me. I don’t… I don’t know why I made it seem like I didn’t want you to. I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry. There’s a lot of shit I wasn’t thinking about today.”

When Steve finally opens his eyes, Billy’s watching him. Steve can’t tell what he’s thinking, but he’s not frowning. It’s a step.


	24. twenty three.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nancy answers the phone.

It’s pretty late, but it’s also a Saturday evening, so it’s not super random for Nancy to get a phone call. The timing’s not _great_, since she’s in the middle of packing. NYU’s been kind enough to give them the week leading up to Thanksgiving off, and she's heaven forbid-- excited to spend it in little old Hawkins, Indiana. 

Nancy definitely has a moment where she considers just… not answering the phone. She thinks _no, I’m not answering that_, thoughts practically audible. But then, from deep within, comes this little niggling of suburban duty and her own sense of personal responsibility, so she sighs deep and puts down the shirt she’s trying to fold, and she answers the phone. 

“Nancy Wheeler, good evening.” She uses a tone that’s a throwback to her secretary days, polite and sterile and a little crisp. She’s hoping it’s her mom or something so she can hurry her off the phone by reason of needing to pack. Which wouldn’t be a lie, exactly. 

“Hey, Nance?” the phone says, a little hesitant. It’s definitely not her mom. 

“Steve!” Nancy’s face lights up, and she wonders if her smile gets to him all the way on the other side of the line. 

“How’s it going?” Steve’s courteous, still a little hesitant. Weird, for Steve. Not the being polite, the hesitance. 

“I’m good,” Nancy tells him. “I’m just finishing packing. I’ll be in Hawkins tomorrow, if you wanna meet up before Thanksgiving.”

Steve sounds a little distracted when he says, “That sounds great, yeah. Maybe… maybe Tuesday?” But then he follows it up with, “So… about Thanksgiving…”

Nancy frowns. “Can you still make it?” She asks. _ Are you okay? _ She doesn’t ask. 

“Yeah, no-- yeah, I’m gonna be there. I just… Would you mind. I have a plus one.”

Nancy’s eyebrows raise and _ oh_, she wishes she could see Steve’s face. 

“No. _ Way_,” She says. _ No. Way. _“You met someone? What’s she like?”

Steve’s chuckle crackles through the phone. “It’s not like that.”

“Then what’s it like? Tell me about her. Where did you meet?”

“It really isn’t like that,” Steve repeats.

Nancy leans against the wall where the phone is plugged, twirling the cord in her hand, packing forgotten. “Then what _ is _ it like?”

“It’s not a girl, for one.”

Nancy remembers the summer after her grade eleven year, when her and Jonathan worked under each others’ skin and Steve worked halfway across town at the brand new Starcourt Mall. She remembers the late spring afternoons before the monsters returned, Nancy and Jonathan and Steve, together in Nancy’s princess bed. She remembers that Steve liked being touched, loved getting affection-- from her, from Jonathan. She remembers that he always looked guilty, every time she caught him watching her and Jonathan kiss goodbye.

“What’s _ he _ like?” She’s just glad he found someone, that’s all.

“It’s not like that,” Steve says again. Nancy doesn’t think he sounds entirely convincing, but she’s not going to push him for honesty. Maybe it’s something he’s working on. Maybe it’s something _ he _ doesn’t believe yet.

Steve continues, “I just want to… y’know. Give you a heads up that he’s coming.”

“Well--” Nancy pictures Steve getting affection, of Steve looking guilty about being _ caught _ kissing instead of wanting to be kissed-- “Thanks for letting me know he’s coming.”

“Uh, yeah.” It sounds like Steve might be chewing on a thumbnail on the other end. “That’s not the big deal, though.”

“Okay,” Nancy coaxes him, “What’s the big deal?”

Nancy hears Steve huff out a few breaths before:

“It’s Billy Hargrove.”

Nancy has the phone pressed to her ear. She’s sure of that. She takes a moment to pull it away from the side of her head and look at it. Yes, it’s in her hand, too.

“Let me call you back,” she says to Steve, and hangs up. 

Nancy takes a moment to listen to the dial tone before she punches in the Harringtons' phone number. There are one, two rings before Steve picks up. 

“Nance?” 

“Yeah, sorry,” she says. It’s Steve. She knows this for sure, now. Pretty sure, since she called the number that she knows, for sure, is Steve’s. “What were you saying?”

“Billy Hargrove.”

Yes, that’s what she thought. “Max’s brother?” She asks. _ The dead one_? She thinks.

“Yeah, I guess he wasn’t…” Steve probably shrugs. His awkwardness is palatable. “He was still alive. Even after we thought…”

“He was dead.” Nancy finishes. That’s the issue.

“I know it doesn’t make sense--”

“It doesn’t, Steve!” She bursts out. She catches herself pacing, as far as the phone’s cord will let her. She makes herself stop and taps her foot instead. “It makes no sense. He’s supposed to be _ dead_, first of all. And what if he’s not…. What if this is a trick? From Hawkins Lab? From the Mindflayer?”

“It’s not,” Steve says immediately. When Nancy had first met Steve, he had seemed a very sure person. But as she got to know him, she realised that wasn’t the case. It’s nice hearing him so confident, for once. She just wishes he was being reasonable as well. 

“How do you know it’s not?” Nancy imagines each of Steve’s points, generates counterpoints before he even gets to speak. 

“I’ve known him long enough that--”

“How long?”

Steve sighs, heavy. “Nancy, I don’t want this to be--’

“How _ long_, Steve?” Jesus, she feels sick. Of course it would be Steve, of all people, who would let a monster in just because it had a familiar face. Steve, a little too kind, a little too… (she feels bad thinking it, too critical) a little too desperate for affection. 

“...Month and a half,” Steve mutters. Nancy can barely hear him. “Maybe two.”

Nancy sighs. She puts two fingers on her forehead and her thumb on her cheekbone and what do you know, she’s pacing again. 

“Steve--” 

“Yeah, I know. I know.”

“Steve, what were you _ thinking _?”

She hears him murmur something on the other end, hears things shuffling around like he’s moving. She waits for him to speak. Keeps waiting. 

“Steve…’

“He didn’t... y’know? He didn’t have anybody. He wasn’t being shitty or anything, he was just…” Steve’s laugh sounds like static again, but Nancy can hear the edge of sadness to it. “He had no place to stay, Nance. So I gave him a place to stay.”

Nancy frowns. She hopes Steve can hear her silent disapproval through the phone. “And you want him to come to Thanksgiving.”

“Yeah. I mean… If you say it’s okay.”

Nancy thinks of all of the things she’s seen Billy Hargrove do, of all the things she’s heard of him doing. She thinks of all the things that could go wrong. 

“What about Lucas?” she asks. _ What about you? _ She thinks.

“I’ll talk to Billy,” Steve says immediately, “He’ll apologize.” Nancy wonders what other impossible things she can get Steve to agree to.

“He knows this is like… a get-together, right? Not one of those high school ragers.”

“Yes, Nancy. He knows.” Steve sounds very long-suffering, for having had such a minute amount of suffering. And yeah, maybe it was a little rude to say but it was _ Billy Hargrove_. 

“I’m excited to see you,” Nancy tells Steve, and it’s true. Even if it was going to involve Billy. The allegedly not-as-dead, not-as-much-of-an-asshole-as-she-remembered Billy.

“You too, Nance.”

“I’ve gotta finish packing.” And thinking. Boy, she’s gotta do a lot of thinking. 

“Call me when you make it in okay, yeah?”

“Okay.”

“Bye, Nance.”

“Bye, Steve.”

She smiles when she hangs up the phone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for another late one -_- I have three group projects, three non-group projects, and two exams in the next two weeks, so p r a y f o r m e


	25. twenty four.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy goes back to sleep.

Billy wakes up to this weird fucking sound: grunting and panting like someone’s forcing themselves to run. It takes a moment before he realizes that shit, it’s him. Then he falls off the bed. 

“Fuck,” he blurts out. “Christ,” he mumbles. He’s all tangled up in his blankets and his heart is beating so fast. He closes his eyes and huffs out a breath, frowns. 

It’s his first bad dream in a while, he thinks. He remembers the last time he had a dream that woke him up, that Steve had woken him up from. He had been sleeping alone, in the guest room. Steve was upstairs. 

He untangles himself from the blankets, carefully. Back at the lab, he’d learned that if he struggled against the sheets, his breathing would pick up and he’d freak out a little. But if he made himself think about it-- figure out where he was at that very moment, remember that they’re just blankets and he’s just in (or beside) a bed... if he fished his limbs out and straightened the material around himself slowly, he’d be okay. He’d remember where he was. He wouldn’t think about Brimborn, or the dreams he had, being all tangled up and pulled down, down, down. 

There’s a knock on the door. 

“Come in,” Billy says after a beat. He’s able to do this now, able to say ‘come in’ almost automatically instead of freezing up, wondering what he could’ve done to get in trouble. As if Neil ever knocked. 

“Hey,” Steve says. The door opens slowly and the light from the wall streams in again. This time, it doesn’t hit Billy in the face because he’s on the floor. 

“Uh.. are you okay? I heard sounds. And, um... a thump.”

“Yeah.” Billy pulls at the sheets around himself, starts the slow process of untangling them. 

Steve opens the door a little wider. “Are you… on the floor?”

Billy sighs, a little. Works out the tension in his chest. He’s sure it’s obvious, and kind of doesn’t know why Steve’s asking. He feels stupid enough. 

“I’m turning the lights on,” Steve says.

Billy doesn’t close his eyes in time, squints and recoils as Steve comes towards him and crouches. 

“Don’t look too happy to see me,” Steve tells him, and Billy kind of grumbles. 

“You look like shit,” he tells Steve, from where he is, on the floor tangled up in blankets. 

“Couldn’t sleep,” Steve says, and he reaches over to help free Billy. His hands are ice cold, even through the blankets. 

“Shit.” Billy pulls away. “You’re fucking freezing, what the fuck.”

“I was on patrol.” Steve reaches again, gets his hands pushed away. 

“Without me?” Billy asks, and he frees himself from his own blankets, thank you very much. 

Steve offers him this smile, a kind of sad, apologetic thing. Again: “Couldn’t sleep.”

Billy frowns at him. “Even after all that shit last night?”

Steve shrugs. He takes the sheets from Billy, stands. He offers one of his ice-cold hands and Billy uses it to help himself up. 

He sits on the edge of the bed. He holds his hands out for the sheets. But Steve cracks a smile, something silly and a little fond, and says, “No, no-- wait. Lie down.”

“Why?” Billy asks. 

“Just do it,” Steve orders. 

Billy rolls his eyes, but Steve just…  _ looks _ at him expectantly until Billy’s on his back on the bed. His arms are pulled to his sides, his legs pressed together. He feels the chill of the open room against his skin, through his boxers and the t-shirt he wore to bed.

“Harrington, what--”

Steve has the long edge of the bedsheet facing himself, and he holds the corners as far apart as he can when he flips the blanket out. It billows, like one of the multicoloured parachutes that Billy used to play with in elementary school gym class, and when the sheet flutters down on top of him, he can see Steve grinning a mile wide. 

“You’re so fucking weird,” Billy laughs, shakes his head. Steve does the same thing with the comforter that had slipped off of the bed, shaking it out over him and letting it fall. It’s far less impressive. 

“My dad used to tuck me in that way,” Steve says it almost proudly. Billy pulls the comforter up over the lower part of his face so Steve (hopefully) can’t see where he’s gone red, wondering if it means that the other boy had tucked him in just then. 

Steve pats him on the knee. “You good?” he asks, and Billy nods. “Stay in bed this time, okay?”

Billy nods again, and watches Steve as he heads towards the door and reaches for the light switch. 

“Hey,” Billy says, and Steve turns to look, just before he passes the threshold of the guest room door. “You don’t have to go all the way back upstairs.”

“Yeah?” Steve turns out the light. The glow from the hallway paints him up from behind. 

The guest room bed is smaller than Steve’s upstairs. When he slides in, having removed everything but his underwear, his bent knees clip Billy’s legs. 

“Sorry,” he says. 

“It’s okay.” Billy tries to scoot over a little without falling off. Give Steve space. But the bed’s not big enough, not like the one upstairs Billy can feel the heat of the other boy, even as he shifts to make a space of courtesy between them.

“Wait,” Steve says, and he reaches out, and Billy feels the pads of fingers soft against his arm. “Just… can I just--?”

Steve takes his wrist. There’s some wriggling, some coaxing. Steve says  _ come here _ no less than three times. Billy finds himself with Steve’s back pressed along his front, his hand on Steve’s waist. 

Billy winds himself up, lying there in the dark. He’s not comfortable. He’s holding himself awkwardly because he doesn’t want to change the way he’s lying, shift into something more comfortable because it could… what, ruin the moment? Disturb Steve? 

He remembers being very young at some sort of family event. His mother was there. He was holding a baby, just a few weeks old. The way he had held the infant was awkward, but he couldn’t let himself shift. The baby was so tiny, so quiet and still. Billy’s arms got so sore, because the baby was asleep, and he just  _ knew _ that if he moved, the baby would wake up.

He feels the rise and fall of Steve’s breathing, warmth under his hand. Steve is calm and safe beside him, and Billy doesn’t want that to change. 

“Relax,” Steve murmurs, and when Billy finally sleeps, he does not dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! As you may have been able to tell by the two weeks of late chapters in a row, I'm getting close to that exam time burnout. I'm gonna call another every-other-week chapter break for myself, and by the time that wraps itself up, I hope to be back to the normal late Friday/early Saturday/NOT ON SUNDAY schedule. I'll schedule the return-to-normal date for May 1st, and what I hope to do then is not only (a) not burn myself out, but also (b) get a good reserve of chapters written up for you guys so that I don't have to stress about getting them up on time. 
> 
> I really appreciate all of you who've stuck with me so far, and those of you who've made it to this piece for the first time. I read each and every single one of your comments when I get the email alerts even though I don't reply to them right away, and I will say that seeing a new comment alert always brightens my day. I've also realised I have!!!! Seven whole followers on the fic Spotify playlist!!! That was a happy surprise. 
> 
> Everyone take care of yourselves, and I'll see you the week after next!


	26. twenty five.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy opens a cook book.

The weekend drags by.

Billy itches to get back into the garage. The smell of oil and metal had soaked into the fabric of his hoodie, and when he gets out of bed on Saturday he wraps himself up in it, pulls the hood up, over his head. 

The other side of the bed is cold already, sheets rumpled and pushed back. Steve had woken up for work as usual, had kind of woken Billy up when he shifted around in the bed. But things had been different-- they had been brought close by the confines of the guest bed, had been kept close when Steve had pulled BIlly’s arm around him the night before. 

Billy had woken up to Steve’s face. Steve, close to him, a little sleepy-eyed. Giving him this gentle grin, small and-- Billy wanted to kick himself when he thought it-- sweet. Steve, who freed his hand from the blankets around them and brushed his thumb between Billy’s eyebrows--

“You always have this little frown,” he had said, like he was sharing a secret, "...right here. Right when you first wake up." 

Billy thinks of this once Steve gets out of bed, when he comes back to say _goodbye _and head to work. When he stops to bury his nose in the motor oil smell on his hoodie sleeve, he touches the spot above the bridge of his nose and thinks of the soft pads of Steve’s fingers against his skin. Then he thinks of the palm of his hand, grip just the gentle side of strong, pulling Billy’s arm around his waist. 

And the day drags and he wishes that he was doing something, _ anything _ besides cleaning the already-clean furniture and replaying the sensation of Steve’s skin against his own. 

Billy gets in his bed. In Steve’s bed in Steve’s spot. He had been moving a sponge around the counter of the upstairs bathroom and he had just gone in. Left the sponge in the sink, rinsed the chemicals from his hands. His fingers are damp when he pulls back the sheets, leaves little dark prints against the comforter. And he curls up in Steve’s spot. Holds his pillow. He thinks about Steve, his fingers on Billy’s forehead. On his wrist. 

He wonders if Steve felt his scars. The thin ones on his palms, the ropy ones on his wrists. Billy closes his eyes and presses his face into Steve’s pillow. He breathes deep, lets it out slow. Wonders what Steve would think if he touched the scar on Billy’s chest, the big one. The one that still twinged sometimes, when he reached for the middle of his back in the shower. When he breathed too deeply. When he slept too long on his right side. 

When Billy dozes off, he’s thinking about Steve: his hands, palms pressed against Billy’s chest. Gentle against the bone-deep ache in Billy’s muscle, sinew, skin. Steve’s hands against his face, feather-light on his cheeks, like when he had brushed Billy’s tears away after his stupid, stupid dream. After he had hit--

Steve’s hands on his face. Feather-light on his cheeks. Tilting his head and leaning into Billy’s space to press--

To press his lips--

Billy startles awake, like he had hit the bed at the bottom of a fall. Under the blankets, he’s a little too warm. Under the sweatpants, under his boxers, he’s half-hard. 

He takes a shower. Ice cold. No soap, just standing in the chilly spray, trying to turn the movie reel in his head off as it loops, again, again. 

_ Steve’s hands on Billy’s chest. Steve’s hands on Billy’s face. Steve tilting his head and leaning in-- _

When Billy gets out of the bathroom, Steve is home. The lights are on downstairs and in Steve’s room, and Billy wonders if Steve can tell. Wonders if Steve got to his side of the bed and… just _ knew _ somehow. Or if he curled up in his sheets and breathed deep and smelled _ Billy Billy Billy_. If Steve had ever gotten into Billy's side of the bed and held the pillow tight. 

Billy wants to say _ hey_, go into Steve’s room and get back into his bed, but on his own side this time. Both of them on their own sides or maybe in the middle, when Steve says _ come here _and takes Billy’s wrist and pulls him that much closer. 

But Steve calls him from inside of his room, and it’s with a _ hey, Billy_! That his face gets hot. He wonders how Steve detected him, loitering. Silent. Pensive. 

He goes into Steve’s room, and the smile he’s hit with makes his heart skip a beat. 

There’s a concerningly large pile of cookbooks on the bed and Billy opens his mouth to ask _ what_, but then--

“I can’t cook,” Steve informs him, and Billy frowns. He can cook okay. 

“Well… Not _ great_,” he continues. Billy thinks that Steve is doing himself a disservice.

“You’re a good cook,” Billy tells him. Steve raises his eyebrows, purses his lips, shrugs.

“Compared to what?” he asks. And Billy thinks about the fact that he’s eaten nothing but Steve’s cooking for a month and a half, and he thinks about all the hospital food before that. 

“Fuck off, Harrington,” and he sits on the bed, next to all the cookbooks. Steve laughs at him. 

“You’re gonna love Thanksgiving,” he grins. “Mrs. Henderson always sends Dustin with the _ best _ green bean casserole--”

“That sounds like shit,” Billy says, and Steve laughs again. And sure, it’s at Billy’s expense. But flip flop, his heart goes, and he feels his lips tugging into a smile. 

“It’s _ good_,” Steve sounds a little offended, but his eyes are laughing. “I promise, it’s good. She makes everything from scratch. None of that canned mushroom shit.”

Billy narrows his eyes. Shrugs. He doesn’t believe him. 

“Okay,” he says, and Steve narrows his eyes right back.

“You’re gonna have to try it,” he warns. Billy tilts his chin up, posturing aggression.

“You’re gonna have to make me.”

Steve hardens his jaw. Looks pissed. But it’s one beat, two, until he breaks into laughter. 

“Alright, alright--” he chuckles, “You don’t _ have _ to try it. _ This _ time. But you gotta help me make something.”

Billy looks at the array of cookbooks on the bed, and he almost wants to say he’ll try the casserole instead. But Steve looks… hell, he looks _ hopeful_. And Billy’s heart does the thing again and he finds himself picking up a cookbook. 

There are a ton of recipes. Literally, a ton. And Billy’s never even held a cookbook. He remembers his mom keeping clipped out recipes from old magazines she stole off of the receptionist’s table at work. He remembers looking at instructions on boxes of TV dinners and Kraft Mac & Cheese, and then keeping out of the kitchen when Susan arrived, avoiding getting underfoot. 

Steve makes a puzzled little noise. “I’ve never done this before,” he says, kind of low, almost secret even though nobody else is there. “You know, I got these for Thanksgiving. Nerdsgiving. Whatever. You know…” He turns a page in the cookbook he’s holding and frowns a bit before he continues. “The drinks guy?”

“Hmm?” Billy watches Steve flip past something pink and tasty. It looks delicious and equally impossible.

“The drinks guy. The one guy at the potluck who can’t cook, so they make him bring drinks? And like, half the time, drinks are already there?”

“Oh,” Billy says, like he knows what Steve is talking about. “Drinks guy.” 

“I don’t wanna be the drinks guy all my life, y’know? I wanna make something good. Something that’s a big deal.” He looks at all of the cookbooks in front of him. “Or… at least a medium deal.”

Billy suggests recipes as he leafs through cookbooks, flips past foods he's never seen before. Steve vetoes pumpkin pie and candied yams, frets that someone will already have made them. Billy watches him look longingly at these ornate triple-layer cakes, meringue pies. He skims through savoury foods, wincing at each one. 

Billy assesses recipes for difficulty and deliciousness. Everything tasty looks likely to fuck up once Billy gets his hands on it. And from the way Steve's still making faces at food, he's not too confident in his own skills either. 

After a long time of turning pages, Billy suggests something simple, something sweet. Steve makes Billy show him the page in the cookbook, and the way his face lights up almost stops Billy’s heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess this means we have no idea what day it is? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
I have to start managing my time better in this weird groundhog day-esque of self-isolation. The same day has repeated itself for several days over and over again and yeah, it's March Break, so that would usually happen? But this is ENDLESS March Break so I actually have no external motivation to know what day it is. So I have to make my own motivation. Part of that is you, dear readers. But part of that must come from within.


	27. twenty six.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy goes to the mall.

Sunday is another work day for Steve, and he leaves Billy to hang around the house, pretending that Steve doesn’t notice that he cleans secretly. But things are nicer, Steve thinks, than before. Waking up Saturday in the guest room bed had been a little disorienting, but Billy's arm had still been snaked around him. Billy had woken up to smile sleepily at him and say _ bye _ when Steve went to work. And then Steve came home, and they ate and talked and lay together on Steve's bed while the television played, and Steve went to sleep with Billy’s arm around him again. 

He had woken up once that night. He remembers using the downstairs washroom, going back to his bed. Billy was there. _ Billy was there_. And he had furrowed his brow when Steve got back in next to him, and he made this little sound. Steve had reached out and cupped Billy’s cheek with his hand, and he had settled. 

Monday is, Steve decides, a supply run. They’re making chocolate crunch cookies and Steve has nothing but sugar, salt, and maybe an egg. 

“I’m gonna get ingredients after my shift,” he tells Billy in lieu of goodbye before leaving for work. “Want to come with me?” 

Billy looks thoughtful and shrugs as well as he can while lying on his side. 

“You don’t have to,” Steve lets him know, and he says _ goodbye _ and Billy says _ goodbye _and Billy turns over to go back to sleep.

At a quarter to five on the dot, when Steve is trying to get the last of the reshelving done, the phone rings at Family Video and Robin yells at him to answer it and he's rolling his eyes, but then there's this voice on the end that says his name and it's _ Billy_.

"Hey," Steve says, and the tension-- _ woosh _ out of his body like a sigh of relief. He had been expecting it to be a customer. Like, the _ type-- _ the sort of customer who calls fifteen minutes before closing, looking to fight about Family Video not stocking a movie that hadn’t even made it out of the theatres and onto VHS yet. Billy is a welcome surprise.

"Hey," he says back. His voice is kind of soft. Steve can barely hear him above the noise on his end, which is full of clanging and whirring. Something like a drill? He's not sure where Billy is, and he's about to ask before Billy speaks first.

“I wanna come shopping with you,” he rushes out. "Can you grab me after work?" Things click. Billy's at the mechanic's. Steve feels a little dumb forgetting that Billy even _ had _ a job, but he had only gone in for the first time on Friday. And then he had walked home through the dark, and then everyone had freaked out and then the weekend had been business as usual. 

"Yeah, totally," Steve says. Things click again. "Wait. Did you _ walk _ there?"

"It's whatever." Steve can imagine Billy breaking eye contact, doing that lazy one-shouldered shrug thing that he does when he doesn't want to talk about something, when he doesn't want Steve worrying. He decides that he kind of hates it. He thinks about Friday, when he had to walk Billy to the guest room from the kitchen sink, and decides that he hates that, too.

"It’s not whatever,” Steve tells him. “I’ll come get you. What time--?” 

"Five thirty. Six, maybe. Or, like--” He pauses for a moment and huffs out a little sigh. “It’s not… you don’t have to... I’ll wait.” He finishes lamely. “I’ll wait here. You can go and then pick me-- I’ll get home.” 

Like Steve hadn't already told him that he would get him, like Steve hadn't decided that he was going to pick Billy up from work for the rest of eternity. 

“Wanna go to the mall tomorrow morning?” Steve asks. He'd been forced to give Billy all of the grocery bags, and they sit at his feet as Steve drives them home. Tomorrow-- Tuesday-- is one of Steve's days off this week, the other being the Friday after Thanksgiving.

“Mall?” Billy echoes, flat because he knows that there’s no mall in Hawkins. 

“The one in Muncie,” Steve says by way of explanation. Billy makes a face. “What?”

“It’s too fucking _ cute_. Like, Hawkins already has a greeting card name. Also, General Motors sucks. What the fuck is a Muncie?”

But Steve says _I want you to get a nice shirt for Thanksgiving_ and Billy says _yeah, okay_, and _can't_ _wait to wear some real fucking pants_, so they go to the mall in Muncie. Every mall Steve’s ever been in is pretty much the same: too-bright shops full of clothes or shoes or food, copy paste copy paste green and beige and eggshell floor tiles. Weird to see something that big try so hard to not be offensive. Steve barely remembered the last time he’d been in a mall like this, just for fun. With his parents buying him everything he’d ever needed, he’d only gone to the mall for kicks, to feel the rush when cash left his hand for a slightly better version of something he could have easily bought at Melvald's general store. He'd gone to show off to his friends, back when his friends were the type to go to the mall. To impress girls, when he could. 

It’s different here, with Billy. Just the two of them, nobody for Steve to impress in the same way that he impressed people in high school. It’s kind of nice. Sure, it’s a lot larger than last night’s grocery store. And it’s a bit of a hassle when Steve parks on the wrong side of the whole mall, but it’s still kind of nice. The mall’s pretty empty on a Tuesday morning, and having Billy with him makes it significantly less tedious to walk through the Sears and past all of the other little stores. Steve wonders if Billy will let him hold any of the shopping bags this time, or if he’ll grab them all from Steve again, fingers brushing, laughing at Steve to _ fuck off, they’re not that heavy. _

Steve grins at the fresh memory, looks over at Billy to share it. But it hasn’t even been ten minutes and Billy’s sending off this _ vibe_. Steve feels his smile grow stale. 

“You okay?” he asks. 

“This is a chick’s store,” Billy says instead of an actual answer. 

Steve rolls his eyes, but he smiles a little. “The guy stuff’s in the back.”

“This where your mom picks your clothes out for you, Harrington?” Billy says, snippy.

“There’s good stuff here!”

“If you’re, like, a forty-year-old rich bitch.” The tone is sharp, and Steve feels himself getting defensive, confused.

“C’mon, Billy. Look for something.”

Billy makes a face when they weave through the cocktail dresses, wrinkles his nose when they pass the perfume. He snickers at the large posters of models, with their bouffant hair and rouged cheeks and crimson lipstick, and the sound is mean. When he follows Steve between the dress shirts, his back's straight and his fists are balled up at his sides.

There’s a moment where he touches a collared shirt with short sleeves. Deep red. But then he grabs the tag, and the laugh he crows out is loud enough to startle Steve. 

“Jesus. There are people who pay this much for this shit?”

"It's the thread count," Steve says, and he doesn't roll his eyes, but he doesn't smile either. "Try it on, okay? And this green one, too."

"For what?" Billy bites out. 

"For Thanksgiving?" Steve says it like it's obvious, because it is. He'd said it before. "I want you to make a good impression."

"A _ good impression_," Billy sneers. Steve frowns. What the hell? “You want me to spend-- buy this shit for a _ good impression_? Who’re you trying to impress?”

“No one? Just… you wanna have dinner in a windbreaker and sweatpants?” 

“You think a fucking shirt’s gonna make a good fucking impression? Hey, Sinclair, look how fucking expensive my goddamn shirt is. Hope it makes up for me shoving you against a bookshelf. Maybe the _ high thread count will _ make ‘em forget the time I killed, like, a third of the people in Hawkins. Jesus Christ.”

Billy’s baring his teeth, shoving his fists deep into his pockets. “Why’d you even bring me here?”

“To buy a shirt for Thanksgiving,” Steve says slowly. He feels the words stick against his teeth. 

“Fuck, if I knew I had to spend so much just to have dinner in a room full of people who hate me, I would’ve decided to stay fucking _ home _.”

“I’ll cover it, okay? It’s not a big deal.”

“What, you want me to owe you even more now? I fuckin said I’d _ think _ about it, Harrington. Christ.” He turns sharp on his heel, like he’s headed somewhere. He turns again, back to Steve. “I fucking _ hate _ this place. I’m not… your goddamn _ mom_. Okay. Isn’t there a fucking…. KMart around here? Christ. I need a cigarette.”

Steve leads Billy out the front of the L.S. Ayres, opposite from where they had entered from the body of the mall. They’re on the opposite side of the building from Steve’s car, and when Billy tries to light his cigarette, his hands shake. 

Click, click, click. His grip on the lighter is awkward and the flame won’t come up. 

“Hey,” Steve says gently, reaches for his arm. “Let me--”

Billy startles when Steve touches him. His lighter clatters to the ground. 

“_ Fuck _ .” Billy’s foot snaps out, and the lighter skitters across the concrete. “ _ Fuck _!”

Steve takes a step back.

"You don't _ have _ to go," he makes himself say. His chest is all tight, and there’s fear, and there’s worry, and _ disappointment_. "I don't want to force you to go."

Steve thinks of Thanksgiving. He thinks of Billy-- at Steve's house, by himself. Cleaning, or watching TV. He thinks of sitting at the Wheeler's, surrounded by friends, people more family than his actual mom and dad. He thinks of himself, distracted. Picturing Billy. Alone. 

“They don’t think that stuff about you.” The words tumble past his lips like stones, heavy. Wrong. And he hasn’t told them yet. Hasn’t even brought Billy up to anyone but Nancy. How’s he supposed to know what they think about him at all? He thinks of Mike, of Dustin. Of _ Lucas_, God. Seeing Billy for the first time. Staring at him, hard and cold and terrified. 

“I don’t wanna go back in there,” Billy says. His lighter is still on the ground. His cigarette is wrinkled and bent between his fingers. 

“Yeah,” Steve agrees immediately. “Okay. There’s tons of stores here, we don’t have to go back to that one.”

Billy shakes his head. He looks away from Steve and the cigarette falls, forgotten, rolling away across the concrete as he rubs at his face. “Not…” He curses under his breath. “I just…” His voice shakes and he tries again. “I just need a fucking smoke, is all.”

Billy stands, hands over his eyes, and he’s doing that thing where he forces himself to breathe. Steve wonders how much clothes usually cost, if he has to do this. He wonders if his standing, if his breathing, has anything to do with clothes at all. 

Steve picks up Billy’s lighter and gets out one of his own cigarettes. There’s a click, and a flame, and Steve sucks at the filter until the end lights. 

“Billy,” he says, and smoke billows from between his lips. There’s a beat, two, and the hands drop from Billy’s face. Steve holds out the cigarette. 

“We can walk to my car,” Steve tells him, “We’ll take the long way. Walk outside, around the mall. So you can finish your smoke.”

Billy takes the lit cigarette from him. They walk around the building. Billy smokes his cigarette. 

He lights another one in the car. He smokes with the window down, silent all the way to the K-Mart. Up until Steve parks, until he shuts off the engine. Billy lights another when he steps out of the BMW. 

“Sorry,” he shrugs, and Steve says _ it’s okay _ before he even really knows what Billy’s sorry for. But then he frowns, and he asks _why? _ and Billy shrugs again. “Guess I just don’t like malls much, anymore?” He breathes out this little pulse of a laugh before he heads towards the store. 

Steve watches Billy go, and he thinks of the cream tiles, the high open ceilings of Muncie Mall, of Starcourt. 

That night, when they are in bed, he makes Billy face away from him. Steve holds him tight instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is brought to you by [this chart ](https://www.vocabulary.cl/pictures/lay-lie-difference-english.jpg)and [this wikihow article](https://www.wikihow.com/Smoke-a-Cigarette).


	28. chapter twenty seven.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy helps Steve.

It’s late in the morning on Wednesday, and Billy is getting dressed. He’s in front of Steve’s vanity mirror, in his brand new jeans and his short-sleeved collared shirt. He had picked a red one. Buttoned up the last three buttons and tucked the shirt into his pants. He stands up straight, rolls his shoulders out: stretches them back and broad. 

Looking back at him is this… skinny bitch of a tough-guy wannabe, this pale asshole boy scout reject. Billy does up a few more buttons. 

Yesterday was a day off for Steve, but today is a workday for both of them. Steve had told Billy not to worry about getting to work-- Steve would take his lunch a little after twelve and use it to swing by the house and drop Billy off at the garage so he didn’t have to walk.

_ I’m coming by to pick you up, _ he had said over Billy’s protests. _ So it would be cool if I could see you. _

Billy was surprised that Steve was so..insistent? Eager? To make sure that he got a ride to work. But Billy’s even more surprised that Steve had let him leave the store yesterday with clothes that made him look like shit. 

Billy pulls his shirttails out of his pants. He does up one more button and his thumb brushes across the thick ropy scars that spiderweb across his chest. He tucks his shirt back into his pants. 

When he hears Steve come in through the front door, Billy’s in a dark green long-sleeve crew neck. He can’t help but worry at the sleeves of the shirt, wondering if the pale unevenness of his skin is visible above the hems. 

“Wow,” Steve says, when he comes upstairs to say hello. “You look good.”

And whether or not it’s a lie, it makes Billy… ugh. What the fuck. It makes him _ happy_. And the jeans feel good, a lot better than the scrub pants did, when he’s working at the garage. He feels… not like his old self again. But better. A better version of his newer self. 

Billy is happy. Not all the time, but sometimes. It’s a weird feeling, to know that he can be happy sometimes. That he can feel ugly in the morning, and that he can feel happy not a few moments later, when Steve says he _ looks good_. That he can think about what Steve said while he’s at work. When they’re driving home. When they’re curled up in bed together, and it keeps making him happy. 

He’s a little less happy when he wakes up in the night. There’s shouting, and Billy shoots out of bed with his heart pounding, wondering what he’d done and what Neil wants before he stumbles into the bedside table and realises that it’s _ Steve_, in the bed, Steve screaming like he’s being killed. 

“Fuck,” says Billy, and he gets back into the bed. _ Hey_, he says, _ hey! _ And he can hear his own heart beating as he shakes Steve’s shoulders. Steve makes this low terror sound like he’d been punched. His hands flail and when Billy gets a palm to the face he jerks away. But then it’s only fair, isn’t it? Turnabout, and everything. 

“Steve!” he shouts, and there’s that little feeling that he’s gonna get in trouble for shouting. But then there’s no one else in the house besides them, and it works anyways-- Steve opens his eyes and he does this wet little sob and then he’s climbing all over Billy. 

“Fuck,” Billy says, and he holds Steve, holds him tight. “I’ve got you. Holy shit, Harrington.”

Steve’s shaking? And Billy’s a little bit afraid because yeah, Steve had that nightmare once when he fell asleep on the couch. And then there are those stupid patrols he always goes on, though not so much anymore. And there was that time when he got no sleep and was really fucked up. And Billy’s pretty sure he’s crying. Tit for tat, again. But Steve is holding on to him, and he’s shaking, and he won’t stop making those _ sounds_.

“Are you okay?” Billy asks, and it’s weird speaking into the dark. It sounds like it swallows his words. He kind of wonders if Steve even heard him. There’s no pause in his shuddery breaths, the hitched little gasps. And slowly, slowly, the noises fade away. Billy wonders if the dark swallowed them too. 

In the daytime, Billy wakes up first. The sun is high. There are salt tracks on Steve’s cheeks. Billy spends a long time looking at them, wondering if he should brush them away. 

When Steve gets up, he makes pancakes for breakfast and puts some of the chocolate chips in them. He forgets that it’s Thanksgiving and nowhere’s open, so he has to make them lunch, too. He cooks too much spaghetti. They eat it with butter and oregano, and they shred up this little block of parmesan that Steve found in the back of the fridge.

Steve wants to bake the cookies in the evening, so that they can cool and get packed away and settle overnight and be good to go in the morning. He has all of these things to say about the optimal resting time and the tastes merging even though he knew nothing about baking the day before yesterday, even though he has shadows under his eyes from the night before. Billy is happy to listen to Steve. Billy’s pretty sure that he won’t remember anything that Steve says, but he hopes that the fact he’s listening makes Steve happy too. 

“Read me the instructions,” says Steve, “and I’ll measure the ingredients in.”

“Cream one cup butter,” Billy announces. He makes a face. "_ What _ do they want me to do to the butter?" 

Steve's shaking his head, laughing as he hands Billy a mixing bowl. "You gotta, like. Mix it until it gets fluffy. Mix it really hard.”

“Really hard?” Billy echoes, and narrows his eyes. “The fuck kind of baking is this?”

Steve swats him on the shoulder and Billy has to fight his lips from curling into a grin. He’s about to ask how hard Steve wants him to mix when a flare of static and a beep sounds from upstairs. Billy raises his eyebrows, turns to ask Steve what kind of person has a… police radio? That’s the sound it makes Billy think of. He’s about to ask what kind of person has a police radio in their room, but then Steve has this look on his face like someone just told him they’ve got bad news. Hooded eyes. Wary. 

“Harrington, what--” Billy starts.

“Cream that butter,” Steve says, and he flashes a grin, starts to head upstairs. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

Billy can only stir the butter so long. It feels like more than a handful of minutes when he wonders if he’s done it enough, wonders if he can add the sugar yet, wonders if Steve would want Billy to wait for him. He thinks about that look on Steve’s face and has to force himself not to wonder if Steve’s okay. He wonders if he can… over-cream? Is that a word? Over-cream the butter. He wonders if maybe he should stop mixing. 

He leaves the bowl on the kitchen table, wipes his hands a little aimlessly on his pants. He probably shouldn’t follow Steve upstairs, not if he looked like that. But it’s not following, he decides. He’s just checking. There’s nothing wrong with making sure Steve’s okay. 

The door to Steve’s room is open, but only just a crack. “Harrington,” Billy starts to say, but when he brushes his fingers against the door, he’s stopped by a click and the buzz of static. The voice on the other end of the radio is animated, loud, kind of aggressive. Billy drops his hand.

“--hear it through Nancy instead of from you. Over.”

Steve sighs heavily before he replies. “I was _ going _to tell you guys.”

“...Over?” The radio voice is only slightly more pedantic than pissed.

Steve huffs. “Over.”

“And--” the voice continues, “--she said he’d been back for months?! _ Months_. And you didn’t tell anyone. Over. I mean, what the fuck, Steve?! Over!”

“Not like... months. Maybe a month and a--”

“It doesn’t fucking matter! Month and a half. Jesus. Friends don’t lie! And that includes shit like _ lying by omission _!” The voice on the other end of the radio cracks, crackles with static. Billy would’ve laughed but they’re… they sound pissed. And Steve sounds stressed, and Billy knows he shouldn’t be listening, but his feet have glued themselves to the floor.

When Steve speaks again, his voice is soft. “You forgot to say ‘Over’.”

“To hell with ‘over’!” The voice shrills and the static buzzes and Billy takes a step back. This is, he realizes, because of him. Because Steve didn’t tell _ anyone _ about him, like he said he did, and Billy’s gonna be around all these people. _ Tomorrow_. “Christ, Steve. What the hell is wrong with you? ...Over.”

“I knew…” Steve does that sigh again, and Billy doesn’t know if he wants to be pissed or hurt or what, because yeah, Steve lied to him. Which… _ fuck_, Steve had _ lied _ to him. But he… he had lied to whoever was on the other end of that radio too. Maybe Billy… Of course he’s not _ special_. But at least he’s not the only one that Steve lies to. 

“I knew it was him,” Steve continues. He sounds… hurt? And maybe a little defeated, like he lost something. Billy wants it not to matter, that Steve lied. “Just him. Not the… the mindflayer, or Hawkins Energy, or anything. Okay? I _ knew_. And I knew I could help. I just… Jesus. I just wanted to help.”

“That doesn't mean you can’t call us. And tell us what you found. So we take care of it. Together. Over.

“It was like, two in the morning.” Steve sounds like he knows that’s a poor excuse, and it takes him a second to follow it up with “Over.”

“_ Together_. Do you understand? Over.”

It’s quiet in the room for a while. Nothing but the soft white noise of the open radio line. Billy takes another step back before the voice shrills again:

“Do you understand! Over!”

“Yeah! Holy shit. I get it. Over.”

The voice is insistent. “It’s… it’s _ Billy Hargrove_, Steve. And like… he treated Max like crap. He tried to beat the shit out of Lucas. And he almost killed you that Halloween.”

Billy’s stomach churns. He wonders if the butter needs more creaming. But he can’t help himself, can’t help but strain to hear. _ He almost killed you that Halloween_. Fuck. That’s the soundbite Billy’s gonna play in his head when this whole arrangement fucks itself up, when he screws up tomorrow and Steve decides that yeah, finally, he’s really done with him. 

He’s so in his head that he almost doesn’t catch what Steve says next:

“It’s not-- he’s not like that anymore. He’s not gonna do that again.”

The voice sounds annoyed. “Did I say _ over_? I wasn’t finished. Over.’

“No.” Steve breathes out a little laugh. “Over.”

“Thank you. So even though he’s a shitty, terrifying person, Billy saved El. And. You’re still alive right now. So far. So it might be okay.”

Finally, _ finally_, Billy tears himself away. _ Right now_. _ So far_. Like he could snap at any moment and take Steve with him. 

When Steve comes back downstairs, Billy’s mixing the butter aggressively. Steve comes up to his elbow and looks into the bowl.

“Not bad,” Steve says, and the smile he offers Billy is tired but sincere. 

Steve measures out the brown sugar and the white sugar, adds them one at a time. He makes Billy keep mixing, calls him the _ baking muscle_. He beats two eggs and slides them into the bowl, cheering Billy on, shouting _ Cream! Cream! Cream! _Until Billy locks eyes with him and gives him one of his old smouldering looks, slowly dragging his tongue against the curve of his lower lip. Steve’s mouth snaps shut and he blushes hard, breaking into a laugh when Billy nudges him. 

It’s almost midnight when the last of the cookies finish baking. The kitchen smells like sugar and chocolate. Steve had banned them both from eating the cookie dough and had been quick enough to catch Billy each time he had tried to sneak a mouthful, so when he takes a bite of the freshly made Chocolate Crunch cookie from page 257 of _ Ruth Wakefield's Toll House Tried and True Recipes_, it’s the first taste. Billy looks on, expectant. 

“Good?” he asks. Steve chews and chews, and he forces himself to swallow. 

“They’re shit,” he says, and he puts the half-eaten cookie on the counter as Billy’s face falls. 

“It’s okay,” he says, and Steve turns to leave the kitchen. “We can just try--”

“I’m gonna get ready for bed,” Steve says. He sounds tired, like when he had woken up that morning. “I’ve gotta get up early. Gotta drop by Melvald’s to grab drinks.”

Billy frowns. “Harrington--”

“I’ll be right back,” he calls down, already starting to climb the steps. “I’ll help you clean up, don’t worry.”

Billy watches Steve go upstairs. He disappears, into his room. Billy keeps watching. 

He makes himself try a cookie and yeah. Shit. They’re… _ bitter. _ They’re very clearly chocolate chip cookies with walnuts, like the recipe said. They look good and smell great and they’ve got this crispy edge and chewy centre... but they also have this sharp, gross taste that goes right to the back of Billy’s throat. Shit. 

He didn’t totally get the thing, about being the drinks guy. Not really. But the cookies… they were important. Something about them was a Big Deal. And Steve had already been… a little off. From the nightmares last night. From sleeping in even after Billy had gotten up. From the call on the radio.

Billy can’t fix the cookies, but he starts to clean up the kitchen. He wipes flour and a few stray chocolate chips from the countertops, sweeps the tile floor. He makes sure that all of the baking ingredients are put away, and plugs one side of the dual sink, running hot water so that when he collects the bowls and measuring cups and tablespoons, they--

Wait. _ Wait. _

Billy grabs _ Ruth Wakefield's Toll House Tried and True Recipes_, flips to page 257. 

“Shit,” he says, as he looks at the tablespoon in his hand, checks and checks and double-checks where the recipe says **1 teaspoon soda **and **1 teaspoon salt**. 

And it makes sense. It makes sense when he thinks about Steve’s letter and how many words were scribbled out over and over, and how tsp and tbsp were pretty much the same, when they were written so small on the handle of the spoon. Were pretty much the same unless you were measuring things like baking soda and salt. 

Steve doesn’t come back downstairs. Billy doesn’t mind cleaning up. But he’s alone and things are quiet, and his brain fills the silence by reminding him that he _ almost killed Steve that Halloween_. _ Almost beat the shit out of Lucas_. _ Treated Max like crap_. 

_ He’s not like that anymore_, Steve had said. And Billy… Billy’s not sure how true that is. He’s not living with Neil, which certainly takes the edge off of… of him. And he’s… weak. So he wouldn’t be able to fuck Steve up again if he tried. But to say he’s changed…? Might be a reach. Even if Steve said he had. Even if he wanted to believe Steve with his whole heart. Even if Steve had lied to him before. Maybe Steve had lied to the voice on the other end of the radio, too. 

Billy decides that he knows very little-- not enough-- about what he’s like. If he’s changed. But what he does know is that even if everything else was perfect, the cookies that he and Steve made taste like shit. He knows that all he has to do to fix them is to use the right spoon this time. The ingredients and the instructions are right in front of him. 

Most importantly, he can cream butter _real _good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made the cookies! [Recipe and some strangely butty pictures here](https://sevenfootwave.tumblr.com/post/615776329225404416/). I hope everyone's doing okay in these strange times. How is everyone? I hope that your company is pleasant or, at the very least, tolerable. Stay safe and stay kind.


	29. twenty-eight.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karen hosts a potluck,

When Karen enters the kitchen, Nancy is elbow-deep in the sink. 

“Mom,” she says. Karen Wheeler’s two other children have long since disappeared to their rooms, and Nancy (thank heavens for her) is doing the dishes. Karen’s missed her daughter. It’s Nancy’s first time being away for school, and Holly’s too little to pick up the slack. Mike is… well. Mike. And boys will be boys. 

“Oh, Nancy--” Karen smiles. She opens the cupboard where the good dishes are, reaching towards the wine glasses. Ted’s parents had brought over a bottle of Sauternes, a little thank you for hosting Thanksgiving dinner. Karen picks the glasses up, two at a time, by the stems. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“It’s fine. I don’t mind doing them. We’ll need an extra plate for tomorrow. Is that okay?”

Karen knows the tone all too well-- Nancy’s letting her know, not asking for permission. She appreciates the sentiment nonetheless. 

“Of course.” She’s halfway back to the living room when she turns back to set one hand’s worth of glasses on the kitchen island. The corkscrew is in the drawer with the serving spoons and spatulas. She retrieves it, tucking it under her opposite elbow before picking up the glasses again. “Who else is coming?”

“Billy Hargrove,” Nancy sighs, sounds apologetic. 

A lifetime as a small-town suburbanite has prepared Karen Wheeler for this moment-- Her face doesn’t change, except for where she raises an eyebrow slightly. But her heart stops. All the air whooshes out of her lungs. She can’t help but think of full lips, blue eyes. Private swimming lessons. _ Breaststroke_. Mint gum and the curve of a grin. Broad shoulders and gold ringlets. Water and skin and _stay away from me, Karen_. 

“Oh?” she asks. “Billy Hargrove. Was he the one who was at Starcourt Mall during that fire last summer? He--”

“Went missing,” Nancy interjects. She shuts off the tap and shakes excess water from her hands before picking up a towel. “Like Mike’s friend, Will,” 

Karen nods, like she gets it. Like she doesn’t remember dropping Mike off at Billy’s funeral last summer. Like she doesn’t remember being too chickenshit to look at the coffin of a kid her daughter’s age, a kid she’d almost fucked out at the Motel Six on Cornwallis. 

“It’s good that they found him, then--” Karen smiles as Nancy dries the dishes, “--if he went missing.”

Ted’s parents go home. Karen says good night to her two older children and reads a bedtime story to Holly. Karen closes her door, cutting off the sounds of the football game playing downstairs. 

When she closes her own door, she can still hear the television. She wonders if Ted’s asleep yet, downstairs on that lumpy recliner chair, while Karen sprawls between 200 count sheets with her mind racing. Billy Hargrove. Back from the dead like the Byers boy. Joyce was right to get out of Hawkins, get her boys out of Hawkins. Where kids just _go missing _and show up again, and try to sate their needs by seducing housewives just as bored and lonely as they are. 

She wonders if Billy will be angry tomorrow, when he sees her. If he’s the kind of person to hold a grudge after a year and a half. She’s not stupid. She’s done stupid things in the past, but Karen herself is far from unintelligent. She’s heard things about Billy from her peers, from Ted and from her kids and from whispers around their little town. How else would she have known to watch him until he noticed her, look and look until her stare caught his eye?

She knew that something was wrong with him. Why else would a teenager -- especially one who looked like he looked -- want anything to do with a woman her age? Whether she looked like Karen or not? He’d given this vibe off, like he’d been carrying a torch for her since he’d eaten a cookie in her kitchen Halloween of ‘84. And then from what she’d heard, little snatches of information pieced together, not ten minutes later he’d beaten up her daughter’s ex-boyfriend in her son’s best friend’s living room. 

And then there he was, after the Starcourt Mall, after he had _gone missing _just like Will Byers, after-- she was _sure _she had heard this-- after his family had moved away. Something-- _ several things _had to be wrong with Billy Hargrove. God, how could someone leave their own child behind?

When Ted comes to bed, Karen pretends to be asleep. Ted curls up on his own side of the mattress, without touching her.

“Goodnight, Karen,” he says, not expecting a reply. “Love you.”

In the morning, Karen makes a point of dressing like she usually dresses. She chooses a three-quarter sleeved dress-shirt, the one with the pastel vertical stripes. High waisted slacks. Her eyeshadow is light, her lipstick natural. Deliberately opposite the last several times she knew she’d see Billy Hargrove. She wonders if he’ll sneer, if he’ll look her up and down like he did every time he saw her at the pool, but this time find her wanting. She wonders if he’ll say something awful. She wonders if he’ll even look at her at all. 

Billy Hargrove comes over early. He’s with Nancy’s ex-boyfriend, the one he beat up. When the ex-- Steve, Karen makes herself remember-- comes in to wrap Nancy in a hug, Billy hangs back. 

Full lips, blue eyes. He’s paler than he used to be, and he hovers a step behind Steve. His hair is close-cropped and, oh, his ears-- ears that stick out, that somehow make him look more like a child than he had a year and a half ago. Her stomach roils with guilt. 

“Here’s Nancy,” Steve tells Billy. 

Nancy sticks her hand out, polite as ever. Karen wonders if Billy can see the edge to her smile. 

“We had bio together.” Billy’s holding three plastic grocery bags, and he pushes them all into one hand before shaking Nancy’s. 

“And this is her mom,” Steve continues, “Karen.”

“Nice to see you again,” Nancy lies. 

“Billy,” Karen hears herself say. It’s perfectly neutral, not too hard and not too soft, and she is relieved. “Come put those bags in the kitchen.”

He does this little glance, looks at Steve for a second before he follows her, and Karen wonders what happened to him in the year and a half he went missing, that he has to look at Steve before going somewhere, before walking with Karen to the kitchen where they will be alone together, speak their first words in private since _ stay away from me, Karen_.

“What did you bring?” she asks. She has plates piled on the kitchen island, space cleared on the counter. Billy shifts on his feet. She remembers him looking much more confident the last time he was here. 

“Juice, soda. Or, um-- pop. Cookies.”

“I didn’t know you baked,” Karen says. She thinks about taking the bags from him, wonders how he’d react if she touched his fingers, even all business-like, even without intent. She decides, in the end, to give Billy space, to step back from the cleared area on the counter. To gesture towards it. 

Billy lets out this little hiss of breath. A laugh? He’s pushing down a smile-- Not the grin, the smirk; nothing like what he’d have shown her at the pool. 

“I don’t,” he tells her. He pulls a bottle of orange juice out of a bag, a bottle of apple juice. A two-litre bottle of Coca-Cola, another one of Sprite. He pulls out a tin and opens it, and a chocolate-sugar smell wafts up. “Steve made them.”

“They smell amazing.” Karen keeps her voice level, matronly. 

Billy shrugs. He puts the lid on the tin and the tin on the counter. “He’s like… excited. You know. For everyone to try them.”

“I’m sure they’ll be delicious.”

Karen catches Billy pushing down a smile again. It makes her uneasy to think that here, in the kitchen with this… this _ boy _ who looks so much younger now, here is when Billy is being sincere. Last year’s summer, Hawkins pool, sharp shark smile… that was different. 

For a second her heart sinks when she considers that Billy, last summer’s Billy, had never wanted her. She chides herself instead; she’s the adult. What Billy wanted or didn’t want doesn’t-- _ should have _ never mattered. 

“Thank you, Billy,” Karen says. She gives him a smile, and she starts to put the drinks in the fridge. 

“No problem, Ka--” He stops, and the room is silent. Karen looks up from the drinks.

Billy shifts his feet again. “Do you need help with anything, Mrs. Wheeler?” he mutters, and there’s the barest hint of an edge to his voice. She realises after a second that, while the words are for her, the tone is meant for himself. The tips of his ears are pink. 

“I’m fantastic,” she tells him, and is honest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   * Late chapter! Thanks for holding on. 
>   * This is supposed to be the week that I return to once a week updates, instead of once every other week updates. I am going to try my absolute best to make that happen because it would be ideal for everyone involved, I think. 
>   * I have this intention that I want to reply to everyone's comments. That still exists. There are a lot. I will do it, because I treasure the moment that you spent telling me how this story made you feel. When will I do it? That is the question. 
>   * Since you've made it here, thank you so much for being here <3


	30. twenty nine.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve is happy.

Steve can't get over Billy's jeans. 

They make his legs look longer. Somehow. And when he passes by, sometimes Steve can't help…. Shit. Steve finds his eyes running over the curve of his ass, the tightness where his thighs sit. Something that he never did when Billy was in sweatpants or scrubs. Something that he forced himself not to do when he was in his boxers, ready for sleep. The jeans are a stressful medium.

Steve's almost relieved that Billy decides to forego the button up. He wouldn't be able to cope with seeing Billy's chest, the hitch of the shirt, tucked in around the slimming of his waist. But the shirt Billy's wearing now does things, too. Different things, but still things. It's a dark red shirt, almost maroon. Reminiscent of one of the button-ups Billy used to own. But what he used to show off is covered, and so it's the little things-- his hands, the bone of his wrist when he reaches out, the v at the base of his neck, the line of skin that peeks between the hem of his shirt and the top of his jeans when Billy stretches-- it's those little things that wreck Steve. 

Steve… he forces himself to suck it up. Billy’s gone to the kitchen and Steve distracts himself by greeting Nancy, by being pulled into the front room to greet Jonathan and Joyce and Will and Eleven and Mike. Steve-- when he stops thinking about _ Billy’s jeans _ \-- quickly realises that he’s _happy_. He’s missed Nancy while she was away for school, and he’s missed the Byers and El, all the way out in Maine. Jonathan shakes his hand almost aggressively and gives him the biggest smile he can muster, and Will and El wait patiently until they can give him their hugs. 

Steve’s glad he had come early. Once everyone settles back down, he sees that Mike and El and Will have piled onto the sofa, that Joyce has curled into the armchair by the doorway closest to the front entrance. Jonathan’s sitting on the other armchair on the opposite side of the sofa, Nancy sitting on the edge of the rocking chair next to him. The white windsor back chairs from the breakfast table have been pulled into the front room as well. Steve sits on one, pulls the one beside him a little closer. 

He hadn’t exactly wanted to test Billy with a huge group of strangers right off the bat, but if he had to, this group contained some of the better people for him to meet first. He’s sure that the Byers will be kind to him. He hopes that Nancy and Mike have enough suburban niceties to… not be mean, at least. 

His heart seizes, though, when El shoots up from her seat. 

“_Billy_!” she gasps, and Steve looks towards the doorway and yep, it’s Billy. He has this terrifying image of El backing against a wall and bursting into tears. But instead she’s surging forward and wrapping her arms around Billy’s middle, wrapping him in a hug even better than the one she had given Steve. He wonders if he might have been a little jealous if he weren’t so relieved. Billy, on the other hand, looks nothing short of terrified-- his eyes are wide and his hands are up like he’s proving to cops that he’s not armed. 

“El--” Steve says, and--

“What the _fuck_,” Mike grunts, but El just kind of… holds Billy until he winds down a bit, until he drops his arms and looks mildly perturbed instead of ready to flee and says, barely audible, _ um… hi. _

It takes a moment, but El pulls back, releases Billy. “I’m glad you’re here,” she says, in that way she does, eyes large and voice quiet but strong. Everyone is watching as Billy frowns at her, opens his mouth to say something. Closes it. 

“Me too.” Steve decides to eat up the silence instead of letting it permeate. “I’m…” he looks at Billy, “I’m really glad.”

Then it’s quiet again. A quiet with a different focus. The corner of Billy’s mouth ticks up into the smallest portion of a grin, and Steve feels his own face get warm. 

“Steve?” Nancy asks, and Steve doesn’t look at her, doesn’t want to answer any questions that she might have about how glad he is that Billy is here. The interruption, then, is perfectly timed. Someone knocks heavily on the door. As Nancy gets up to answer it, Steve floods with relief. He pats the empty seat next to him. Billy sits. 

It’s… a lot. Steve can tell that it’s a lot for Billy. Though the house is full of people that Steve loves, for Billy the house is just _ full_, and he sits on the chair next to Steve because Steve asked him to be there, because if Billy wasn’t there, the house would not have been full of people that Steve--

He sits with Billy as everyone filters in, stays glued to his seat when Mrs. Sinclair drops off Erica and Lucas and Erica stares and Lucas tries not to look like he’s watching Billy. He waits for people to drop their dishes off in the kitchen, and when they return he takes only moments-- gets up, gets his hugs, sits back down. He stays right where he is when Robin and Dustin show up, when Robin’s eyes light up with mischief and Dustin’s face goes all sombre. He shakes his head at Robin and when she’s close enough for him to get his hug without straying too far from Billy, he whispers _ be nice_. 

Dustin and him, they do their secret handshake. Then there’s a beat, and Dustin turns to Billy. Steve can feel how Billy tenses next to him, can see the flex of his jaw and the tightening of his fingers against the fabric of his jeans. 

“Truce,” Dustin states. He holds out his hand. Billy’s eyes flicker towards Steve, just for a moment, before his expression grows cool and his chin tilts up. 

“Yeah.” His hand claps into Dustin’s palm, shakes it like they’re business partners. “Truce.”

It takes a while after that, but eventually Billy winds down. He’s not so wound up, doesn’t look like he’s about to launch off of his seat. When Nancy makes her rounds asking if anyone wants something to drink, he smiles. There’s a bit of his asshole smile, from back in high school, but his eyes are mostly kind. He says _ surprise me_, and Nancy’s smile is mostly kind, too. 

Robin is _ nice_, like Steve told her to be. She asks Billy if he’s liking Nerdsgiving ( _ yeah, it’s cool _ ) and what he brought to share ( _ um, just drinks)_. She says _ can I ask you about school_? Instead of just asking ( _ whatever, okay _), and Billy talks about how it would be cool if he could do biology or some shit, but he’s fucked if he can’t get his high school diploma. 

Steve hovers for a while, can’t help hovering. But he wanders to the kitchen for snacks once, and when the kids all suddenly seem to disappear he heads down the basement to check in on them. When he comes back upstairs, Billy is gone. Nancy rolls her eyes at Steve and tells him that he and Jonothan have gone outside for a _ smoke_, and the emphasis that she puts on the word means that the two of them will come back in about fifteen minutes, liberally applied cologne barely masking the smell of thyme and skunk. 

Happy, Steve thinks. He likes the sound of the word. He thinks that maybe he can get used to thinking it, to feeling it. 

In the kitchen, Mrs. Wheeler is pulling a ham out of the oven. She is setting up the island with plates and cutlery, with the dishes that everyone brought to share for dinner. A buffet. She greets Steve when he comes in to find something else to nibble on, and she smiles when he asks if she wants him to do anything. 

“Just stand there and look cute,” she says. She sets the ham on a trivet. “I’m really excited to try those cookies you brought. They smell so good!”

“Cookies?” Steve frowns. “I didn’t bring any--” His mouth snaps shut and his stomach flips. Fuck. _ Billy_. Fuck. What the fuck? 

He remembers when they were getting into the car earlier that day, when Billy wouldn’t let him touch the bags, even though Steve had brought them all the way in from Melvald’s. He had picked them up, shrugged Steve’s hands away as he reached for them. Steve hadn’t…. Fuck, he hadn’t thought twice. He had assumed it was the same as when they had gone to the grocery store, when Billy wouldn’t let him touch a thing as they walked to the car. He had been being chivalrous, or something. Probably. Steve wasn’t sure what he was thinking this morning. 

Karen is excited. _ Shit_. Steve thinks about the bitter baking-soda taste, the one that overwhelmed the taste of the cookies, the chocolate, when he had swallowed them yesterday night. He thinks about his friends, these people around him that were pretty much family. Taking their bites, chewing slowly, swallowing laboriously. Trying to smile through expressions of disgust that they couldn’t quite suppress. He can imagine Nancy: _ Not bad! _ Jonathan: _ Good first try. _ Will saying nothing, helping himself to a second cookie just to make Steve feel better. El, putting a hand on his harm, looking at him with pity. _ Shit_. 

He wonders if he can get them out of the kitchen, get rid of them before anyone notices. Maybe he can…. Fuck, he doesn't know. Put them in the trash. Volunteer to bring them out when it’s time for desert and spill them everywhere. Part of him wants to tell everyone not to eat them because they taste like crap but fuck, why would he want to admit that? He… he didn’t _ mind _being the drinks guy again, today. There was always next time for him to bring something, next special occasion. He’d rather have been the drinks guy than the shitty cookie guy. Fuck. He’d never live it down. Yeah, sure, he’d have been forgiven. And everyone would try whatever he made next time. But there’d always be this. There’d always be the _ joke_\-- _ I hope they’re better than the ones you made last time_, or _ Steve baked it? Better watch out_! There’d always be _something_. 

Steve floats back out of the kitchen, returns to the front room and his seat on the windsor back chair. He hears Jonothan and Billy come back in, smells the liberally applied cologne and the thyme and skunk before he sees them. Billy is talking, smiling as he speaks to Jonathan. He smiles at Steve, too, when he enters the room. 

Steve tries to smile back. It doesn’t work. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is brought to you by [Types of Chairs](https://7esl.com/chairs-vocabulary/) and [What's the Name of that Thing?](https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=1336629)


	31. thirty.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy finds himself.

The longer Billy hangs around at the Wheeler's, the more he finds that he's... okay? Something like that. He's... fine. Maybe even doing well. It's definitely unexpected. A little surreal. There he is, surrounded by people who he treated like shit or ignored or... or knocked out, and they're fine. They're fine with him. 

Like... they don't _ love _him. The dark-haired kid who used to hang out with Max, the one who might be model-pretty if he ever grows into his face, gives him this fucking... _ look _when he walks into the front room. Like _ what are you doing here _and _ I can't believe they let you in my fucking house _ rolled up all in one. And when the Sinclair kid and his little sister arrive, he stops when he sees Billy. He squares his shoulders and tilts up his chin in a way that he thinks makes him look tough but really means he's scared to shit. Billy knows the posture well.

These moments, far and few between, are deserved. Billy deserves the looks, deserves more than that. But Steve... He's done _something_. Billy's not sure what, but he's done something, and everyone is... Fuck. Maybe they're not _nice_, but they don't treat him like shit. They don't treat him like he's not supposed to be here. 

The girl with the dark hair and the big eyes-- El, the one who helped him fight the Magnatroph-- she hugs him. Even Robin doesn't fuck with him too much. And the curly-haired kid that walks in with her-- huge hair and huge smile and a huge hug for Steve-- walks up and offers Billy a fucking truce-- sticks his hand out like a tiny politician. The handshake is something even Neil Hargrove would be proud of. Billy has to push down this… weird bubbly feeling. It takes a few moments after the kid’s wandered off to realize that he's… what the hell. He’s worried about if the kid _likes _him. 

Robin talks to him about school. She says she’s had her eye on Ivy Tech down in Muncie and wants to pick up a couple of courses in between shifts at Family Video. When Steve gets up to go check on the kids, Jonathan Byers (decent chem partner, never saw him at any of Tommy’s parties) swoops in. Well… swoops is too strong a word, really, when it comes to Jonathan. He leans over from his place on the armchair until Bily makes eye contact, and he gets up to introduce himself like they hadn’t been in the same classes for most of three semesters. 

“Jonathan,” he says, shaking Billy’s hand. Billy plays along. 

“Billy.”

Jonathan asks if he wants to go out for a smoke, and Billy doesn’t even have to think before he accepts. He follows after Jonathan to get their coats and shoes from the closet off of the front foyer, and they wind through the Wheelers’ home and out the side door. 

“There’s too much of it, huh?” Jonathan says, once they’re outside. He hops on one foot, pulls on one shoe, then the other. Billy feels a little guilty for wearing his through the house. He makes a face. 

“Too much what?” He sounds gruff, more than he wants to. It’s stupid. He’s pissed, then he acts like an asshole, then he’s pissed ‘cause he’s acting like an asshole. 

“The Wheelers’ house.” Jonathan doesn’t sound like he thinks Billy’s mad or anything, which is cool. “I always get reminded that I’m poor when I come here.”

Billy’s eyebrows raise, and they go even further up when Jonathan pulls a little ziploc bag with an honest to god joint out of his coat pocket. 

“Shit,” Billy says, about both things. “You’re speaking my language.”

Jonathan smiles, this awkward-but-sincere thing that makes Billy wonder if no one’s warned Jonathan about him, about Halloween ‘84, and July ‘85. Maybe he really didn’t recognize him. Thought he was someone different. 

Jonathan gets the joint out of the bag and lights it for them. He takes a decent hit, hands it to Billy. 

“You and Steve are getting along,” Jonathan notes. Billy coughs a little, more from the statement than the sharpness of the smoke. Still, he’s never gotten used to the weed up here. 

“Yeah,” he says, after Jonathan’s patted him on the back and he’s taken another hit to smooth down the first.”

“Stronger than Cali weed?” Jonathan asks, and there’s a hint of mischief in the quirk of his lips. 

“Shittier,” Billy corrects. Clears his throat, hands over the joint. Billy can feel a faint tingling where his fingers touch the thin paper. His arms and legs are getting heavy, and he can feel his concerns from earlier slipping back, nestling themselves under a layer of soothing. “I’ve never gotten used to this Eastern shit.”

“I dunno,” Jonathan takes a long, deep pull and holds it. He passes back to Billy before he exhales, tilts his head back and puffs smoke rings into the sky. “I like Hawkins weed. It’s okay in Maine, but this one has… I dunno, a kick to it.”

Billy laughs mid-inhale, a lungful of smoke wasted. 

“What the fuck. A _ kick _? That’s just shit weed.”

Billy sees Jonathan laugh, too. “Hey, if you’re gonna complain, give it back.”

He does, but not before taking a proper hit. 

They smoke in silence for a bit, standing beside the Wheelers’ house in the cold and semi-dark. Dusk comes early in Hawkins’ late fall, and Billy realizes that it must have been a few hours since he and Steve arrived. He’s kind of amazed that he hasn’t been told off or threatened yet. There’s still time, he reminds himself. 

“Have you called or written anything? To California?”

Billy’s glad that smoking takes the edge off the glare that he gives to Jonathan. It’s a knee-jerk reaction: The question itself feels like a punch to the gut, and he’s gotta bite his tongue to keep from saying something shitty over a...fuck. What _ should _be a simple question.

Jonathan puts his hands up, that kind of _ I have no weapons, officer _ position with the end of the joint between his thumb and forefinger. But he doesn’t look _ scared_, and hell-- he keeps fucking talking. 

“I know how Steve is--” he passes the smoke back to Billy, like a peace offering-- “He only told us you were coming like… a couple days ago? Well. Nancy told us he told her you were coming. And El says that he’s the only one that hasn’t written to Max.”

Billy’s eyebrows are furrowed, but it’s with intrigue instead of anger. He wonders if Jonathan can tell the difference.

He goes on anyways. “You should write her. Steve has the address. He’d be _ thrilled _ to help you.”

The way that Jonathan says _ thrilled _ makes Billy narrow his eyes. He takes the joint and takes a good puff and doesn’t pass it back. Jonathan, Billy decides, is lucky that Billy is high. Wobbly-headed, soft-around-the-edges enough not to lash out, say something stupid. Say something shitty. 

“You can finish that, if you want,” Jonathan says. Billy passes it back instead. 

-

Billy can’t figure out when it happens, but something shifts. Steve’s still sitting next to him, and Billy’s… Billy’s been _ good_, but something’s off. Something is different. 

Billy thinks about having come in with Jonathan, feeling soft and warm from getting out of the cold. He remembers smiling at Steve and Steve smiling back and his tummy doing a little flip-flop because that’s just what happens to him now, when Steve smiles. He thinks about listening to the others talk, watching Steve laugh when Robin tells him an inside joke that Billy doesn’t understand, but smiles at anyways. 

Billy doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. He knows for a fact that no one is mad at him, that he hasn’t pissed anyone off or hurt anyone and Steve… Steve’s _ fine _ with him. He had _ wanted _ him to come. Just ‘cause Steve’s… not looking at him as much, not talking to him as much… it’s whatever. It’s _ obvious_. There are other people here. People like a family to Steve. People Steve loves. Billy should have been prepared for something like this. Of course. Obvious. Steve can’t come to this huge potluck and just talk to Billy. God. Billy’s gotta… he’s gotta fucking _ share_. It’s stupid. He’s stupid. Maybe he shouldn’t have had so much weed. Maybe he should ask Jonathan if he has any more. 

Billy finds himself wearing his jacket, heading outside. He has his hands in his pockets and they are curled into fists. He thinks for a moment about asking if Jonathan wants to come with him, but when he finds his way back to the front room, he sees Nancy telling, like, a story or something. She is smiling, animated. Steve laughs at whatever she’s saying and Jonathan looks like he’s in love. 

Billy leaves the room. He rubs his thumb over the teeth of the lighter switch.

Mrs. Wheeler catches him on the way out. She asks him if he can tell the kids it’ll be time for dinner in ten minutes, and then he finds himself jogging down the basement stairs. 

He almost runs into someone on his way down-- one of the kids, shooting around the corner with a bowl of crumbs and popcorn kernels. _ Shit, _ the kid says, and Billy looks up, and it’s _ Lucas Sinclair _. 

“Um,” he blinks, and the kid’s entire body stiffens. Billy takes a step back, halfway up a stair. “Sorry.”

Sinclair recoils. “What?”

“I’m glad you’re writing Max,” Billy says. He feels his face heat. He _ needs _his smoke. Fuck. He needs his fucking smoke. But-- “Dinner’s in ten minutes.”

“Oh.” Sinclair frowns. “Thanks?” 

Billy gets out of the basement. He gets out of the house, takes deep shuddering breaths of the crisp November air. He lights his cigarette with shaking hands, and hopes that it takes less than ten minutes to suck it down. 

He wants another, but dinner was _ in ten minutes _maybe about ten minutes ago, so he makes himself go inside. In the kitchen, people are piling their plates high with food: Ham, corn, candied yam, some creamy dish full of green beans. There’s a chicken pot pie and tons of mashed potatoes and corn and baked macaroni and cheese. Billy grabs an extra dinner roll, none of the beans, and a little of everything else. 

As people leave the kitchen, they split up. Some of the kids go to the basement. Jonathan’s little brother pulls on his shirt sleeve and Jonathan follows him down, too. The curly-haired kid who shook his hand and called _ truce _\-- Dustin, Billy reminds himself-- trails after Steve into the Wheelers’ dining room. 

The Byers mom-- Joyce-- is at the table already. Nancy and Erica sit on either side of her with Erica at the head of the table. Robin’s taken up beside Erica, and pats the chair next to her when she sees Steve come in. 

“Hey,” she says, and Steve says _ hey _ and he sits and Dustin sits by him, and all the chairs are full. 

Billy stands, dish full in his hands. Steve scoops up a forkful from the pile of beans on his own plate, shovels it into his mouth and grins big at the kid next to him. It’s the longest two seconds of Billy’s life. 

“Dustin,” Joyce says after a moment. She glances at Billy and purses her lips. “Why don’t you eat with the other kids downstairs?”

“I can go,” Nancy says. She starts to get up. “Jonathan’s down there.”

_ It’s okay _, Billy hears himself say. He takes a step, backwards, back towards the hall. Dustin and Nancy and Robin and Erica and Joyce Byers are watching him. Five pairs of eyes on him, and Steve’s head is bowed over his dinner. 

Billy finds himself in the hallway. He holds his plate tight in shaking hands, and he holds his breath while his eyes prickle. 

This is stupid, he chides himself. You’re stupid. 

“Stop it,” he hisses to the empty corridor. He squeezes his eyes shut tight.

When he opens them, El is standing in front of him, in his space. He makes a little noise and backs up. 

El looks at the plate in Billy’s hands, looks at him. She frowns. 

“I’m just looking for somewhere to sit,” he explains. He’s not sure why he feels he has to explain to her. 

“Steve,” she states. Billy’s sure he doesn’t make a face or change his expression or anything, but the girl’s lips tighten into a line and she looks… angry?

“_ Stupid _.” Her voice is soft, but her irritation is almost palatable. 

“He has other friends,” Billy tells her. She rolls her eyes and grabs the elbow of his shirt. He’s being pulled downstairs. The sound of chatter and laughter and forks against ceramic get closer and louder and then suddenly quiet when Billy’s feet hit the gray-blue carpet of the Wheelers’ basement floor. 

It’s a loud sort of silence. The Wheeler kid and Sinclair are-- _ were _ \-- playing video games. They’re sitting with controllers in their hands, half-eaten plates of food next to them, eyes wide. The little characters on the television are shot at, and the screen goes black. Yellow text appears: **GAME OVER**. 

El points at a spot on the couch until Billy sits, and when she starts her own dinner, she says _stop looking at him_. Even though her mouth is full. 

Billy eats slowly. He makes himself brush away this thought that if he moves too fast, they’ll all start to watch him again. El smiles at him, sometimes. And when he finishes eating, she makes him play video games, too. He’s bad at the game where the men have to shoot the enemies, and he’s bad at the game where they take turns racing. He scores lower than all of the kids pretty consistently, until Lucas gives him a tip that helps him beat Will by forty points. 

The kids get called up for desert. Billy accompanies them at El’s behest, but slips outside instead. He can’t shake off the drive he has to interact with Steve, and he thinks-- he _ knows _ that Steve… he wants time with the others, too. Doesn’t need Billy breathing down the back of his neck here, or sitting by him, or looking at him. 

His hands shake when he lights his first cigarette, his second and third. On number four, he’s reigned himself in, bringing the lit side of the butt to the end of his new cigarette with mostly steady fingers. 

The door opens up. Billy turns to say hey, hoping for Jonathan and maybe another round of shitty weed. But it’s Steve, and the greeting dies on Billy’s tongue, and the cigarette drops to the ground.

“Shit,” Billy says, and he’s torn between having to scrape his fingers against cold dirt to avoid using his shit lighter or just… using the shit lighter. But mostly he doesn’t want to look up, doesn’t want to see the door swinging shut behind Steve as he goes back into the house, continues to look for whoever he was looking for when he found Billy instead. 

When he picks up the butt, it’s already died. And fuck, he can’t help it-- he looks up at Steve, and he’s still there. He’s watching Billy, brow furrowed, lips in a firm little line. He looks… Billy would laugh if he could. He looks like El did, just before she called Steve stupid.

“Lose something, Harrington?” Billy calls. It’s not meant to be mean, but the edges of Steve’s mouth turn downwards. Billy has to stick his hand in his pocket to curl a fist around his lighter. 

“El called me stupid,” Steve tells him. He says it weird, not like he’s mad. He sounds like he’s offering something to Billy. 

“You’re not.” Billy shrugs. He pulls out his lighter and click, click, click, lights his cigarette. 

“I should’ve gotten you a spot with me,” Steve says. He comes over, close enough that he’d get a faceful of smoke if Billy didn’t blow it away from him. So he exhales out of the side of his mouth, and he shrugs. 

“I don’t care if you sit with your other friends,” he lies. He figures if Steve can do it to make him feel better, he can do the same. 

“That’s not--” Steve sighs. “You…”

Billy turns his head to the side, quickly puffs out another butt of smoke.

“Go back in,” he says. “It’s whatever.”

Steve frowns. He’s standing shoulder-width apart, planting his feet. 

“You made the cookies again. Last night.” 

Billy thinks of a million things he could say. Settles on, “Yeah? So?” His face gets hot. Steve’s just _looking _at him. What the fuck?

“Why?” Billy hears Steve say. He doesn’t want to look at him, so he doesn’t look. He talks to the ground instead. 

“You said…” Billy shrugs and chews on the end of his smoke. “You didn’t wanna be the drinks guy.”

It’s quiet. It’s _really _quiet. The sky’s dark and Billy’s smoked almost all the way down to the filter, and Steve doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t move anywhere. Maybe he doesn’t even breathe. But then he takes a step into Billy’s space, says _ fuck it_, and--

Billy finds himself being kissed. 

“They’re really good,” Steve says as he pulls away. Billy is silent, reeling. He thinks about how soft Steve’s lips were, how warm they felt on his. 

“_ Please _.” Steve continues. “Come in with me. You gotta try one of the cookies.”

Billy presses his tongue against his bottom lip. “Okay,” he says.

Steve’s hand is warm in Billy’s, and he pulls him into the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought REALLY HARD about posting this chapter in two parts. But to be fair, I’ve been trying to make these boys kiss since September, and I didn’t want to make anyone wait anymore for them to touch lips. It’s been one heck of a ride. Good job, boys. And thanks, you guys, for sticking with me. The end isn't near, I don't think, but it's in sight.


	32. thirty one.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve sleeps through the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They get naked and touch in here so I bumped the rating up to M.

Steve really, _ really _likes kissing Billy. Steve's used to getting and giving tender kisses, making out during television commercials or until it reaches his partner's curfew. He knows what it’s like to be kissed passionately, like someone's gunning down a one way road to sex. Billy, though-- Billy kisses Steve like he's trying to crawl into his skin. Billy kisses with his tongue and his teeth. He kisses with his hands on Steve’s jaw and under his shirt and in his hair. Billy kisses with his whole body, lining himself up with as much of Steve as he can. When he breaks away to take a breath he buries his face in Steve's neck, breathes him in like he needs him as bad as the air he's gulping in. 

Back outside the Wheelers’ house, when Steve had first kissed Billy, he had been worried that it would fuck everything up. That Billy wouldn’t want it, that it bothered him that Steve was another guy. Maybe kissing was a little too far, on the wrong side of sharing beds, of the holding each other at night. Maybe he only wanted Steve the way he had him, and nothing more. 

But there, outside the Wheelers’ house, he had kissed Billy. He had taken his hand and pulled him back into the light and the warmth like it was easy, like he had been used to kissing Billy and holding his hand. His heart had been pounding. He had been thinking about all of the awful things that Billy would do once he caught on to the fact that Steve had kissed him. But Billy hadn’t even pulled his hand away, had let Steve pull him into the house. And when Steve let go of his hand, not quite sure how the others would react to their palms pressed together like they _ meant _ something to each other, Billy hovered. Stayed near him. 

Steve made Billy try a cookie. He had chewed slowly and looked pensive and told Steve that it was _ not bad _ and Steve had scoffed. _ What are you talking about_? He had asked. _ They’re amazing_. 

Billy’s smile was secret, with just a hint of pride. It killed Steve, just a little. He ended up feeling guilty for a better part of the evening, distracted by Billy and his little secret smiles and the memory of their kiss when he was around people that he cared very much for, some that he hadn’t seen in a long time. The guilt, however, hadn’t been enough to make him linger when the energy of Nerdsgiving started winding down. About a third of the way through the recording of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, when Erica had fallen asleep and the older kids hadn’t been faring much better, Steve nudged Billy. Asked if he wanted to head out. Karen had come to find them while they were putting their coats on and offered to make up a place for them to stay for the night. Steve thanked her. Told her he didn’t want her to go through all of that trouble. Told her it was nice to sleep in his own bed. 

They had said goodbye. Karen gave Steve a hug. Billy shifted, awkward, until she held her hand out for him to shake. From that moment, out into the car, all the way home, Steve felt Billy’s eyes on him. His gaze was tangible, a buzz under Steve’s skin. Steve could feel it on him when he took off everything but his briefs, when he turned off everything but the little lamp on his desk and got into bed and under the covers, when he reached out to Billy and said _ c’mere_. 

Steve decides that he never wants to stop kissing Billy. If there’s a way that he can do it forever, if there’s a wish he can make or a part of his soul he can sell, he’s decided that he’s gonna accept the deal. If he can make it so that he can live in this bed with this boy against him, no matter what it costs, he'll do it. Billy has his hands on Steve’s hips, thumbs dipping under the elastic band of his briefs. Billy has a hand on Steve’s chest, thumbing at his nipples until each brush sends a jolt right to his lower stomach. Billy is perfect, and Steve’s a little mad at himself that he hasn’t ever asked, hadn’t ever thought about doing this before. 

“You care if I take off my underwear?” Steve gasps out, when Billy takes a moment to breathe. 

_ Yeah_, Billy says, and _ let me _ and the little path his fingers make on Steve’s legs light him up from the inside. He wants to do Billy too, take his boxers off slow and touch his thighs and watch as the fabric against his skin makes him shudder. He asks and Billy says it’s okay and so Steve does it, watches him shudder and cuts his shuddery sigh short by kissing him, again and again. 

Steve kisses Billy’s lips, his jaw, his neck. He kisses Billy’s collar bones, where they peek above the collar of the dark green long-sleeve crewneck that he got in bed with, straight from Nerdsgiving. His teeth close on equal parts cotton and hot skin. He shoves his hands under the fabric and feels Billy pull away for the first time.

“What?” Steve frowns. He touches Billy’s hip. 

“Nothing.” Billy laughs. He bites Steve’s shoulder and pushes back towards him. He drops his hand, and his fingers draw themselves against the length of Steve’s dick. The sound Steve makes is undignified, but it makes Billy’s face light up. 

“You like that, Harrington?” Billy purrs, and it’s utterly ridiculous? Absolutely stupid. But the way his voice drops and curls up in Steve’s gut makes his face flush, makes him go _fuck, yeah_, makes him grab Billy’s hips and pull until they’re closer, skin against skin against skin from the waist down.

“Lemme take off your shirt,” Steve pants. Billy’s stroke stutters and slows.

“Why?” Billy asks, and Steve looks at him, and it feels like the room gets a couple degrees colder. He kisses Billy again, and it takes a couple moments before he kisses Steve back. 

“I wanna touch you all over,” Steve tells him. He mutters it against his lips, a desperate little secret he can’t keep to himself anymore. He puts his hand down where Billy’s is and holds his hand until Billy’s grip gets a little tighter. Steve thrusts into their joint grasp. “Can I? Please?”

Steve lets Billy pull his hand away. He rolls on his back and touches himself, thrusting against his hand, just to take the edge off. Billy is sitting on his heels. He raises his arms and bends them until his hands reach the back of his neck. Then he’s pulling, and the shirt is coming off, and he sits there naked with the fabric bunched up around his wrists. 

Steve’s seen him without his shirt before. He knows that Billy is covered in scars, knows that he’s not tan or cut like when he worked at Hawkins Pool. Steve wonders if Billy forgets this, if he doesn’t remember that Steve knows, if he’s afraid that Steve might change his mind about wanting him, once he sees him. Billy’s chin is tilted and his eyes are wary, but when Steve reaches out, Billy goes to him. He lets Steve pull him close and kiss him again. He lets Steve touch him all over. 

-

Steve wakes up to light streaming into his window. How, he wonders, can the lights around the pool be so bright? But then his mind clears and he realises that it's daytime. The light is the sun. 

Billy has his arm slung across Steve’s chest, a knee thrown over Steve’s thigh. He tends to run hot and he’s a little heavy like this, but Steve doesn’t mind. He wants to close his eyes and go back to sleep. The weight is comforting. Steve’s just on the comfortable side of too-warm. They’re a little clammy where they’re pressed up against each other, all skin. Steve wants to stay like this for a long time. 

He doesn’t. Very quickly, he realises that the only reason he’s woken up is that he has to go to the bathroom, and he’s forced to squirm out from beneath the boy in his bed. 

“Sorry,” Steve huffs, when Billy murmurs. “I gotta take a piss.” 

The arm pulls back from his chest. The leg retreats. It’s shitty when he has to climb out from under the blankets and into the chill air of the room. He has never resented using the washroom as much as he does now. He skips drying his hand to rush back under the covers. 

Billy’s a little more awake when he gets there, and he pulls Steve into a kiss. It’s physically awkward, since Billy is pretty groggy and Steve is halfway into bed and hovering over him. But Steve finds himself smiling against Billy’s lips.

He repositions himself on his side, a little less hovering and a little more contact between them. Their legs tangle up. Steve puts a hand on Billy’s chest. 

Billy looks… pensive? When Steve touches him, brings his thumbnail across a nipple. Which is a weird expression, contextually. 

“Not your thing?” Steve says, and Billy shifts, awkward. 

“Um.” He shrugs. “Can’t feel… you know. Not very well. The scars.”

“Oh,” Steve says. He wonders if he makes an expression of pity or something, because Billy goes and _rolls his eyes_. 

“Dick still works,” he grunts, and Steve is laughing when he kisses him again. 

Steve calls into work for the first time in… well, forever? He’s never had anything to call into work for. He gets to talk to Robin, gets to tell her that he kissed Billy, and she’s actually kind of proud of him instead of pissed that he decided to fake sick on a Saturday.

Billy makes Steve let him help with breakfast. They bring pancakes back to Steve’s room and try their best not to get syrup on the sheets. Eating in each others’ company makes Steve think of how he had missed out the night before. It would have been nice to have had dinner with Billy, to back Joyce up on her suggestion that Dustin eat with the other kids or, better yet, drag over a seventh chair. It was, at best, a lost opportunity to eat good food in a room with his favourite people. He considers the fact that he had been the one to lose the opportunity. To assume that bringing the cookies to the potluck had been an action fueled by malicious intent. To punish the intent with… being a whole asshole, to put it mildly.

Steve takes a deep breath. Yeah, he’d said stuff to Billy last night. Stuff like _ I should have sat with you _ but nothing like _ I was a shithead _ or _ I’m sorry for treating you like crap because of cookies_. It was a little fucked up. Childish. It _was _stupid, how he didn’t just ask Billy what he was doing. Or even just trust that he was doing something good. 

He puts his fork down on his plate. “Billy--”

“I didn’t try the green beans,” Billy rushes out. The way he says it makes it sound like a confession. His eyes are bright and wary. Steve pauses for a moment. He wonders how long Billy had been feeling guilty about beans, of all things. But he also wonders if Billy saw the little wheels in Steve’s head turning, if he’s trying to field the heavy thing that Steve was about to bring up. 

“It’s okay,” Steve tells him. “But, Billy--”

Billy looks harried, trying to find something else to say. Steve knows that he can’t hide his own thoughts to save his life. He wonders if Billy knows that he’s the same. 

Steve starts: “I’m sorry about yesterday, I’m--”

“I want to write a letter to Max.”

And…. fuck. Billy hasn’t won. Or like, prevented Steve from talking about the thing. But Steve stops talking. Listens to Billy instead.

Billy looks like someone just asked him to say a speech at the last minute, a little uncomfortable and totally blindsided. “Uh… when I was talking to Jonathan. He said I could write her. You have the address?”

Steve nods. “Yeah, but, I just--”

“I’ll get that off of you.” Billy grabs their plates, scoots off the bed. He’s quick, walking to the door. 

“_ Billy _.”

He drops the plates on Steve’s desk, unceremoniously and maybe a little too rough. _ Shut the fuck up_, he snarls. 

Steve’s shocked. Definitely a little hurt. Billy comes back to the bed, though. Climbs on top of Steve. Kisses it better. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hit a huge block partway through writing this and my beta reader trashmage ran through this in like fifteen minutes for me????? Also [thatgirlwhodraws](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatgirlwhodraws/) gave it a look??? Which I appreciate. I am so tired.


	33. thirty-two.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy writes a letter.

Steve works Sunday, because corporations are Godless and Family Video clings to the potential that this sleepy little town might want to sit together with their families and a nice post-church rental. Billy resents this, if only for the reason that it makes Steve have to get out of bed, out of Billy’s arms and everything. 

When Steve goes to the washroom to shower and dress, Billy scoots over to curl up in the warmth he left behind. He buries his face in Steve’s pillow, breathes in what’s left over of his scent. He feels significantly less guilty than when he had done it before. Now that he had touched Steve, now that Steve had… had _ asked _to touch him. It’s okay. To curl up and enjoy him.

Steve says goodbye to Billy, all wrapped up in him. He says goodbye and he stands at the bedroom door with this _ look _ on his face that’s so soft and full of… what? Longing seems wrong. Care is not quite right. But the look on Steve’s face goes straight to the place right under Billy’s ribs and his face gets hot and he has to look away until Steve is gone. 

After a beat, Steve appears again. He scrambles onto the bed, over the mattress and kisses, kisses, kisses Billy goodbye. 

After he soaks up all of the warmth on Steve’s side of the bed, Billy gets dressed. He has no place, nowhere to go, but he’s discovered that putting on real pants and a shirt he’s chosen makes him feel a little more like an actual human being. He’d never appreciated denim so much until his year and a half of scrubs. 

Billy cleans the bathroom, just a little. There’s dust on the top of the toilet tank and those weird little flecks on the mirror, and Billy hasn’t cleaned for a while. It might be weird, he decides, for the cleaning at this point to be a thank you for letting him stay. So he does it because it’s calming. A little domestic. He’d die before he admits it, but he doesn’t entirely hate the concept of domesticity. 

When he goes downstairs to get breakfast, Billy finds pens and papers and stamps and an address book. They’re all laid out on the kitchen table. He wonders why for a moment, and then he remembers. Yesterday, when he said he’d wanted to write to Max. His chest does the thing it had done when Steve looked at him that morning. 

He procrastinates. The letter, he knows, is something he should do. He _ needs _ to do. But he eats breakfast first, and then he puts on his hoodie and he puts on his jacket and he takes a walk around Loch Nora. Stretching his legs, he thinks. Getting some air. 

Thanksgiving, Billy realises, is startlingly close to Christmas. Two days after Nerdsgiving and most of the houses in Steve’s cute little neighbourhood have lights up, Santas out, wreaths hanging from their doors. Billy, at first, considers the decorations prompt. Then he thinks of the fact that it is November 30th, and there are twenty-five days until Christmas.

He goes home. Back to Steve’s house, because he doesn’t want to look at the decorations anymore. 

Instead, he sits in front of the pens and papers and stamps and address book. He picks up a pen. Scribbles on a paper. 

The holiday looms. It’s in his head, now. He wonders if this, if writing to Max, is really what he should be doing. Now. She’s probably picking out gifts for her little California friends. Shopping for presents with Susan. Maybe she got invited to her school’s Snow Ball, or Winter Formal or whatever. So much shit going on, so much stuff that would be fucked up just from getting a letter from her shitty dead brother. 

This niggling little voice in the back of his head reminds him that _ everyone’s _ written her. Everyone but Billy. And, well, Steve. And Billy… he’s always been competitive, and something inside him that couldn’t be killed off says, what if you beat Steve at this, even with his year and a half head start? And Billy wouldn’t rub that in, or be mean or anything, but it would make _ him _ feel good. A kind of a win. 

He wonders if the win will soften the blow that will inevitably come when Max writes him, tells him to fuck off. Or when Max doesn’t write back at all. 

Billy considers writing to her after Christmas. After all the family stuff’s done, when school hasn’t started back up again yet, so there’s nothing to interrupt. Or maybe a bit later in the year-- right before spring break. Give her five days off, plus the weekend before and after instead of just the six days before school started up again. The six days after New Years’ Eve, since he didn’t want to fuck that up too. Or just after May. Early June, when all the exams were done. So she’d have all of Summer to adjust. But Summer Vacation, too, would be time for family. Good family, who-- for the most part-- hadn’t treated her like crap. Normal family. None of that back-from-the-dead shit. 

It’s that time of year when the sun goes down early, and so when Steve gets home he finds Billy sitting at the table in the dark. His head is in his hands, and he’s distracted enough that Steve’s hands on his hips startle him. 

“Hey,” Steve says, and “Sorry.” He presses his lips to the back of Billy’s neck. Steve’s nose is cold and it makes Billy shiver. 

“Work okay?” he asks Steve, and gets a huffy breath and this short groan in response. 

“I should’ve called in again,” Steve says. It’s only out of respect for his dignity that Billy doesn't think of it as a whine. He sits back on the stool a little, lets Steve’s arms creep the rest of the way around him. 

“This is,” Steve continues, “The absolute best part of my day. Like, officially? Christ. Robin teased me for my whole shift. I hate it there. I wish there was a job where I just got to stay in bed all day with you.”

“Shut up,” Billy says, and Steve pushes his cold nose against Billy’s jaw, slides his cold hands up Billy’s shirt. 

“Make me,” Steve hums, and Billy leaves the pens, the papers, the stamps and the address book to push Steve upstairs. Gets him out of his work clothes. Gets him into the bed. 

For a long time, they’re only skin and heat and breath. Even afterwards, they’re little more than that. Without thinking, they meld themselves together. Steve pins Billy to the bed. His weight is grounding. Comforting? Feels permanent, or like something that could be. 

Steve barely bothers to get dressed before he heads back to the kitchen. He makes Billy come down with him and he cooks them both dinner in his boxers. 

Billy writes Max a letter. 

(It’s shit.)

(He sends it anyway.) 

_Max Mayfield_

_I should’ve told you sooner. I’m okay. A doctor who knew about monsters was able to help me. I stayed at the hospital for a long time and then I got out in October. I should have called you or something. _

_I have always been a bad brother to you. I’m sorry. There’s no excuse for it. Maybe you don’t want to hear from me at all but I wanted you to at least know that I’m sorry. I hope you are happy in California. I hope you and your mom are okay. _

_Billy Hargrove_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there! I have joined the    
[ Writers/Artists Against Police Brutality fundraiser on tumblr ](https://transbillyhargrove.tumblr.com/post/619551534091550720/writersartists-against-police-brutality-started)   
. I am taking prompts for oneshots of at least 500 words and asking for a $10 donation per request. Links to donation sites and further instructions on how to contact writers and artists for donations can be found at the above link. My tumblr is    
[ @sixpacksurfer ](https://sixpacksurfer.tumblr.com/)   
and y e a h it’s technically a defunct RP blog, but that’s gonna be the best way to contact me personally if you’d like me to write for you. Please take a look at the other artists and writers on the list as well! There is also a    
[ Harringrove for BLM ](https://harringrovetrashh.tumblr.com/post/619786330043531264/im-back-again-i-know-youre-probably-sick-of-me)   
list as well! I haven’t looked to see if there are creators on both lists, so there might be some doubles. 
> 
> I am personally offering any combination of Billy/Steve/Tommy/Jonathan, and I am currently the most comfortable with Harringrove. I can include FTM Steve and or/Billy, and can write any characters as friends/family. If there’s something that you’d want me to take a crack at and don’t see there, feel free to shoot me a message! 
> 
> For those of you who also want to do something that doesn’t require money, there is   
[ a youtube video ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCgLa25fDHM&app=desktop)  
that you can watch that will generate donations for BLM. For instructions on how to make your view count,   
[ take a look here ](https://sixpacksurfer.tumblr.com/post/620148144498507776/important-instructions-1-do-not-watch-as)  
! Here is also a   
[ super informative thread ](https://twitter.com/RouReynolds/status/1267204059808903169)  
about activity and learning about why this movement exists. 


	34. thirty-three.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve holds on.

Billy’s a little off, after he writes the letter. He has this look on his face more often than not for a couple days after he sends it. Kind of the same sort of look he had when he’d been sitting in front of blank paper, holding a pen. Steve’s not sure what the look means. 

When Steve leaves Family Video to drive home for lunch, The sky is clear and bright. The day would arguably be summery if it wasn’t for the fact that the air is ice cold. Once he parks the car, he jogs to his front door with his keys already out. He’s shivering by the time he gets there. Inside, with the door locked behind him, he flexes the cold out of his hands. 

Billy comes out from the kitchen. Steve says _ hey _ and puts his arms out and Billy wraps him up in a hug. Steve clings for a bit. Pulls back. 

“You’re cold,” Steve says. He puts his hands on Billy’s cheeks, the reddened tips of his ears. He’s wearing his denim jacket, his hoodie underneath. 

“Went for a walk.” Billy presses his cheek into the curve of Steve’s palm, makes a face as Steve presses his lips to the end of his nose. Steve’s lips come away frigid. 

“I’m getting you a real coat for Christmas,” Steve informs Billy. He leans in to kiss him again, and he leans a little farther than he’d like before he realises that Billy’s pulling back. 

“What?” Steve lets Billy free himself from the affection. He finds his brow furrowing, his chest clenching, and what he feels might be hurt? But Billy’s making the face again, the blank-piece-of-paper face, and Steve drops his hands. 

“I have a job now,” Billy tells him. 

“Congratulations?” Steve asks, and Billy frowns too. 

“No. Like--” His lips tighten and he huffs out a breath. “Don’t buy me anything.”

Steve narrows his eyes. “It’s Christmas,” he says, like it will clear everything up. It should, really. Gifts. That’s what you do for Christmas.

But Billy’s shaking his head, stepping out of Steve’s personal bubble. This is the exact thing Steve doesn’t want. 

Billy tells him _ you’ve already bought me tons of shit_, and _ I’m living at your house_, like Steve hasn’t just been doing those things out of the goodness of his heart. 

“That doesn’t count,” Steve explains, and tries his best to ignore that Billy keeps pulling back, pulling away.

“I don’t wanna be late for my shift,” he says. Steve bites his lip and nods. Has to bite his tongue too, to keep from saying anything more. Billy’s shift starts at one PM, and Steve doesn’t want him to have to call in late or sick. 

The drive to the garage is quiet. Billy’s quiet, and Steve fiddles with the radio a little bit before turning it off. Billy’s looking out the window. Steve sees the reflection of his face in the glass, and it reminds Steve of when he first found Billy. Hair not quite as short, face not quite as gaunt, but expression every bit as wary as when he had been picked up off the street by someone who had been his enemy. 

Steve stops the car a block down from the garage. 

“Hey,” he says, and he reaches out for Billy’s hand. He wants to talk to him a little, maybe. Kiss him goodbye before he pulls up in front of the garage, to where people can see. 

“Thanks for the ride,” Billy says, and he gets out of the car. 

It’s twelve-forty PM. 

~

When Steve pulls up outside the garage after his shift, Billy’s outside, watching for his ride. He’s standing against the building, smoking in the semi-dark, hands jammed into his pockets as he takes puffs of the cigarette he’s holding between his teeth. There’s a moment where Steve finds himself thinking of high school. Of course, Billy’s hair is short and his shirt is closed, but there’s something in the way he holds himself. It reminds him of loud Billy, playboy Billy, aggressive. Just as likely to give you a shark’s smile or a right hook, either one leaving you reeling for days. 

Steve’s a little afraid when this Billy gets into his car. 

Maybe, he realizes as they drive home in silence, that’s the point. 

“What do you want for dinner?” Steve asks when they’re almost home. It’s the kind of conversation starter that married couples use as a polite alternative to divorce. 

Billy shrugs. There’s the soft _ thunk _ of his head against the window.

“I can make something,” Steve offers. “We can order pizza. Go out.”

“Whatever,” Billy grunts at the glass.”It doesn’t matter.”

“C’mon.” Steve would nudge Billy with his foot if he wasn’t driving. A little bit for encouragement, a little bit for the contact. “Pick something.”

Billy sighs and scoots down in his seat. “I don’t care.”

Steve stops for a little too long at a stop sign, taps at his steering wheel before he takes off again. “Don’t you wanna get something that you like?”

It’s like a switch has been flipped. Billy goes from lying against the window to being upright, and the sound of his fist against the dashboard makes Steve startle. He thinks he might have heard something crack.

“I don’t care, Steve, Jesus! I don’t _ want _ to pick something. I don’t give a fuck. Jesus _ Christ_. It’s your fucking money and your fucking dinner. So why don’t _ you _ just _ pick something _?!”

Steve feels his grip tighten, sees his knuckles get white. There’s a part of him that reminds him that he was pushed away this afternoon, that he didn’t get a kiss goodbye. His eyes prickle. He wants to hit the dashboard, too.

Steve does neither of those things. He keeps his eyes on the road. 

When they’re in the driveway and the car is parked, Billy speaks again. “I should be asking _ you _ what you want for dinner. I should be fucking… I dunno. Paying rent. I have a fucking _job_. Isn't it fucked that I’m just… hanging around? Letting you do shit for me? I know you don’t think it is. But it is.”

Steve lets his hands drop from the steering wheel and onto his lap. He looks at Billy. Billy… kind of looks like crap. But he looks like he’s thinking, too, and he keeps talking: “All I ever did was treat you like shit. I bake you fucking cookies and all of a sudden you wanna buy me a Christmas gift?”

Steve frowns. He looks at his steering wheel, his hands in his lap. Is that what this is about? 

“I would’ve bought you a Christmas gift even if you didn’t make the cookies, you know.”

Billy draws a hand over his face, and the way that he sounds, Steve can only describe as _ tired_. “Why?”

“Because it’s Christmas,” Steve hopes he sounds patient instead of condescending. “Everyone gets gifts at Christmas.”

“You don’t have to,” Billy says, and Steve looks at him. Billy is lying against the window again. The echo of his voice against the glass sounds like pleading, and it fucks Steve up a little bit. 

“What if I said I wanted to?” Steve says.

Billy laughs, a short, sad sound.“I’d say you shouldn’t want that, either.”

Steve moves slowly. He undoes his seatbelt and turns to face Billy, reaches his left hand out and towards him, stretching and twisting until his fingers press against his right cheek. He makes Billy look at him, and he forces himself to smile. 

“You can’t tell me what to do.” 

When Steve leans in to kiss him, Billy doesn’t pull away. 

For dinner, Steve heats up a can of tomato soup, makes them grilled cheese. It’s only when he’s on his second sandwich half that he remembers that the sandwich was the first thing that Billy ate, when he arrived at Steve’s house. 

Like that night, Billy looks tired. A little grumpy, closed off. Still pale. Still thin, compared to how he used to be. Just like that night, Steve wants to take care of him. 

Unlike the first night, however, Steve _ can_. He can curl around him in bed, kiss his forehead and kiss his lips, and hold him until they both drop off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your patience! As you know, this chapter was meant to be posted on June 19/20. That did not happen. Between the last post and this current post, however, I managed to make the boys' letters, and those can be found [on the Tumblr post here](https://sevenfootwave.tumblr.com/post/621826084759109632/). They'll also be embedded into the chapters in which they are referred. Please consider them a thankpology 😅
> 
> For those of you who are interested in my trials of writing this chapter, please read on. For those who are not interested in long-winded excuses, haha valid 
> 
> I am gonna open this portion of the note by saying that I have ADHD. Like, I have this nifty little fifteen-page psychoeducational assessment that says so, and it is actually a pretty interesting read. As I progress through school and time, I have been learning about the diagnosis and how it works with me and I with it. I think I can safely say that there is a fairly high chance that the following story would not have occurred if it had not been for me having ADHD. Some say it's a curse. Some say it's a blessing. I'm just glad that I have a diagnosis that explains what's going on sometimes. 
> 
> So partway through last week, I finished writing this chapter. I tend to write things by hand, as it distracts me less than writing by computer. I can bang out a third of a chapter in the time it takes me to get onto my computer, forget what I'm looking for, go down a Wikipedia link hole and then remember I'm supposed to be writing things. So I had my chapter in my notebook, just chilling. I have no idea what happened on Friday, but there was definitely this dance/exercise class that I was taking, and maybe I ran out of spoons???? But I was like 'ahh, I can post it tomorrow' and also at 10 PM I compulsively signed up for three courses on EdX (Music Theory, something about city planning??? and theoretical math). I had readings for the city thing, and Saturday afternoon I had this Black people support group Zoom thing and then after that I was like yeah, let's get this bad boy typed up and beta'd. So I opened my notebook. 
> 
> Little did I know that, while the first half of the chapter was fairly finished, the second half was??? All dialogue and no actions? I had dropped into script format while writing the dialogue and had completely finished the dialogue for the chapter without the dialogue tags or anything in between. It had felt like I was done because plot-wise I had made it to the end of the scene, and I committed that feeling to memory instead of actual facts. So I typed up what I had to do, and I printed it out to edit in the dialogue tags and actions, but then also Saturday is DND night and well... we can't get anything done on DND night. 
> 
> Sunday was Fathers' Day, which mostly consisted of my siblings and I cooking and cleaning. Monday I started to do more class stuff and got really hyperfocused, enough that I skipped Monday's dance/exercise session. And yesterday I had the chance to get my hands on this call for submissions that one of the people in my community is working on-- it was very wordy and academic, so I made a poster and some surveys/a spreadsheet to more efficiently convey and collect information. I was hyperfocusing then too, so I worked on it pretty much from noon to ten PM. 
> 
> There was a point either yesterday or the day before when I wrote in the tags and typed it up. No idea when. And I was finally, finally able to do what I wanted with the information I had for the letters today. I had been wanting to get them up for a while and I thought, since this chapter had been so late, it would be good to get it up now. 
> 
> And that's my story. If you made it here, thank you! 😁
> 
> Just a reminder:
> 
> for [Writers/Artists Against Police Brutality fundraiser on tumblr](https://transbillyhargrove.tumblr.com/post/619551534091550720/writersartists-against-police-brutality-started) I'm taking oneshot requests for $10 donations for requests! I have also seen some ppl doing something like, oneshots for x amounts of petitions signed, so please let me know if you are interested in something like that as well and I will look further into it. My tumblr is   
[@sixpacksurfer](https://sixpacksurfer.tumblr.com/) so please message me there!
> 
> I am personally offering any combination of Billy/Steve/Tommy/Jonathan, and I am currently the most comfortable with Harringrove. I can include FTM Steve and or/Billy, and can write any characters as friends/family. If there’s something that you’d want me to take a crack at and don’t see there, feel free to shoot me a message! 


	35. thirty-four.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy has a dream.

For the first time in a while, Billy has a dream. 

It’s a nightmare, technically. Has all the shit a nightmare would have. He’s stalking kids through the bowels of Starcourt mall. Backhanding his younger sister so hard her pleas bite off in silence and she crumples to the floor. Crushing the Wheeler kid against the pipes worked into the wall, Skull pinging off the metal. Hitting El until she grows still. 

He throws her over his shoulder, effortless. He carries her rag-doll form to the atrium of the mall, and is careful when he lays her down. His moves are calculated when he leans close, and he is articulate when he whispers to her. 

_ Don’t be afraid. It’ll be over soon. Just try and stay very still. _

And he pulls back, and it’s Steve-- Steve lying there with his face busted up, nose and mouth full of blood and when Billy looks down at his own knuckles, they’re full of blood, too. 

“Please,” Steve says, and his voice comes out shaky and wet. 

But Steve doesn’t have any powers from the realm of the Magnatroph. Steve never saw Billy’s mother, can’t project images of her into Billy’s fevered, poisoned mind. So Billy stands when the fireworks stop, before Steve can even think of raising a hand to touch him. And when the pharyngeal jaws of the Magnatroph spring forward, towards Steve’s heart, Billy steps back to let it take him. 

He wakes up before he gets to see Steve die. 

It’s not like he opens his eyes with a gasp or shoots out of bed or anything. He just… wakes up. Like normal. Like it’s an average middle of the night, waking up beside a boy who he dreamed about killing, a boy who he almost killed. And Steve… he just looks so fucking peaceful, lying there in bed next to a monster, and Billy feels sick.

He makes it just in time to the bathroom, heaves into the toilet. He ejects two mouthfuls of bitter water and then nothing as his stomach tries to clench itself into oblivion. 

He kneels for a long time. He sets his arm along the curve of the toilet bowl, bows his head against his bicep, waits for his midsection to protest again. The initial alarm of being sick is wearing off, and his eyes slip shut and the racking of his body spaces itself further apart. 

He doesn’t know what time it is when he gets up, off his knees. Billy stands slow and when his hand shoots out to steady him against the bathroom sink, he can’t help but scoff. 

Weak. Weak, weak, useless. Too weak to hold the Magnatroph back, too weak to keep his hands empty of blood. Too weak to keep even Steve alive, even in his dream. 

Billy clings to the counter, and he brushes his teeth until his gums bleed. 

He finally goes back to Steve’s room. He goes back, and he goes to the bed. His fingers graze the comforter. He looks at Steve’s sleeping face, lit up in soft blue, from where the pool lights stream up and up and through the window. 

_ He’s beautiful_. The thought hits Billy like a truck. He snatches his hand back from the comforter and it’s a testament to his restraint that he doesn’t run from Steve’s room, that he walks careful-quiet down the stairs and to the big sliding doors that lead out to the back yard. Steve is beautiful, and Billy can’t get that image of him, covered in blood and begging for mercy, out of his head. 

Billy thinks about going outside. It’s December, but Steve hasn’t covered the pool yet. His parents haven’t hired anyone to do it for him. The pool heater’s probably off, and if… if Billy decided to go outside, strip off his shirt and his boxers, slide into the water, the thin layer of ice would scrape against his skin. Meet resistance against his scars. Fade into nothing but background noise as the cold of the water punched the breath out of his lungs. 

He wonders how long he could stay beneath the surface, hold himself back from coming up for air. He wonders what would get him first: the breathlessness or the cold or the monster that’s always lived inside him. 

Billy wakes up on the Harringtons’ couch, thin blue light streaming in from outside. There’s a hand on his shoulder, almost hot from its contrast against his skin, cold from sleeping without a blanket. 

“Hey,” Steve’s voice is soft with sleep and his touch is gentle. “Are you feeling okay?” Billy doesn’t deserve it. 

_ I’m good_, he wants to say. But he grunts, makes a face. His throat sticks sharply to itself when he swallows, dry and raw. 

“Come back to bed.” Steve runs fingers over Billy’s hair and the follicles tugging against his scalp make him shiver. 

_ I can’t_, Billy should say. _ I killed you_. _ I would have killed you_. _ I don’t deserve you_. He thinks of hitting El. The wheeler kid. Max. _ Max_. And now there’s a letter in the mail, _ his _ letter in the mail, hurtling towards her like a fucking backhand in the bowels of Starcourt Mall.

_ I can't_, Billy should say. But he doesn’t say anything. He lets Steve touch his hair. Lets Steve help him up, off the couch and up the stairs, even though he doesn’t need it. Hasn’t needed help for a while. He lets Steve bring him into bed, wrap the blankets around him. He lets Steve curl up around him and fall asleep like that, breath hot and slow and alive, _ alive _on the nape of his neck. 

He lets Steve kiss him goodbye before he leaves for work in the morning. He lets Steve look at him with concern, lets him lean forward and hold him for a few extra beats than usual. 

_ I’m gonna walk to work today_, Billy tells him, and Steve frowns. 

“Then you’re gonna wear my coat,” Steve says.

Billy imagines trudging through the cold, nose buried in the collar of Steve’s coat, breathing him in with each frigid step. The smell of him, asleep and peaceful. Awake and happy. Wrapped around Billy, like he deserves it. 

Billy lets Steve drive him to work instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably a few more chapters of sad boys jsyk


	36. thirty-five.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve gets out of bed.

Billy keeps getting up in the middle of the night. 

Steve knows this because he’s usually the one doing it-- getting up to piss or pace or make himself get back under the sheets instead of walking around the house or getting in his car to make sure Hawkins is safe. And usually Billy’s asleep, or mostly asleep. Sometimes he’s headed to the bathroom too, or just coming back, or he’s woken up to the feel of Steve shifting. Once Steve does his business and gets back into bed, a half-awake Billy curls into him. On Saturday night-- the day after Nerdsgiving-- and on Sunday night, Billy pressed into him instead, kissing him sleepily and arching into his touches, a gentled version of what they had done before bed. 

Monday night was weird. Billy had gotten up, and when Steve woke up and sprawled across the bed, Billy’s spot was cold. So Steve got up too, and the bathroom door was closed and the light was on, so he got back into bed. Billy would be back soon, Steve decided, and he closed his eyes and he made himself try to go to sleep. 

It didn’t take. His sleep had been him, tossing and turning, partially conscious for hours, it felt like. And he was sure he’d heard the bathroom door open, footsteps padding softly down the stairs. But Steve _ made _ himself wait for Billy to come back. 

Steve didn’t know how to feel when he found Billy in the living room, curled up and cold. He didn’t know how to feel about Billy saying he wanted to _ walk _ to work the day after, like Steve would let him leave the house like that, when the temperature was just dropping below freezing, in nothing but a denim jacket and a hoodie, not even gloves or a fucking hat? 

Steve keeps coming home to Billy with cold ears and a red nose. Steve keeps collecting a silent, stoic Billy from the garage. He doesn’t ask him what he wants for dinner. They keep getting into bed when it’s time to sleep, and Billy keeps rolling into Steve, sliding his thumbs under his waistband, touching him until he moans, and kissing him and kissing him and kissing him. 

But then Steve keeps waking up to an empty bed. Monday night and Tuesday night and Wednesday night, and now Steve’s lying in bed and it’s the blue dawn time of Thursday night Friday morning, and he’s all sprawled out and there’s _ too much _bed and it’s all cold, so Billy’s in the bathroom, or downstairs again. Cold and alone on a couch instead of sharing Steve’s big warm bed with him. 

Steve sighs and he sits up and he has to prepare himself before he sticks his legs out of the covers. It’s _cold_, and he hates it, and he doesn’t know why BIlly’s tolerating it, arguably preferring it to where he usually sleeps. And it’s not like he’s been fighting when Steve makes him come back to bed. Billy’s… pliant. Affectionate. The only thing that would make it all perfect is if Steve didn’t have to come downstairs and get him every time. 

But Steve gets up. Gets out of bed. Gets cold and sucks it up. Works his way downstairs. In the living room, he’s all ready to kneel by the couch, touch Billy’s shoulder, run fingers through the short fluff of his new hair growth. But Billy’s not on the couch. 

It’s cold in the living room. Colder than normal. Maybe Billy’s in the guest room. Maybe he’s getting a blanket like he should’ve done the first three times he decided to come down here. Maybe he’s in the washroom. 

But there’s this breeze against Steve’s feet, crisp, cold air low to the ground. And he sees that the sliding door is open, just a crack. And when he crosses the door to shut it, he sees a shadow in the pool.

He can taste his own heart, from where it lodges in his throat. And his body is tense and he’s halfway upstairs to grab his bat before he realizes that the shadow in the pool is _ human_.

His body jerks, aimless, confused. Does he run to grab his bat? Or does he run to get Billy-- it _ has _ to be Billy, it _ has _ to be-- out of the pool, away from the place where, if he floats much longer, he’ll meet his own doom. 

He almost trips, back down the stairs. Hopes for the best of all possible awful situations. 

“Billy,” he chokes, because all of a sudden he’s outside in what he went to bed in, and it is Thursday night Friday morning December fifth and he is kneeling by the pool that Barbara Holland was killed in. 

“Shit,” Billy says, righting himself in the pool, wiping water from his face. His eyelashes stick together. They are long and dark, and they make his eyes look so blue and his face look so young. 

_ You know someone died in this fucking pool? _ Steve hears himself say. His voice comes out low and rough and a little mean because he has swallowed so much cold air, choked back terror, is trying not to make the sounds that he wants to make as his mind shows him this fucked up little slide show: Billy, in the water. Billy, floating face down. The shadow underneath him blooming outward, dark red blood under the ripples. 

Billy’s face does something strange. He looks a little guilty, for a second. A little sick. Then he blinks and tightens his lips and looks all blank. “Sorry,” he mutters, and he hauls himself out of the water, arms trembling under his weight. 

Steve, belatedly, finds that he’s shaking too. 

They go inside. Steve watches Billy pick up a towel from where he had left it just inside the door, on the carpet. Steve watches him run the towel on his face, his head. Over his body. His skin looks pale and tight. The boxers that he had slept in cling to him, turned translucent from the water. 

“You keep coming down here.” Steve tries not to sound accusatory. He wonders if Billy figured out how to turn to the heat for the pool. Hopes that he did. 

Billy doesn’t do much. He shrugs a little. Barely looks at Steve. Starts to shift a little, from foot to foot. 

The laugh Steve lets out is harsh and void of humour, and he says, “What-- you’d rather fuck around in a pool someone died in than stay in bed with me?”

He regrets it immediately, even before Billy freezes up, grips the towel tight. 

“I’m sorry,” Steve says. “I’m not sure why I said that,” he lies. 

“It’s whatever,” Billy tells him, quick, bitten off. Like it doesn’t matter that Steve said something shitty, just that he knows that…. that what, Billy didn’t care? That it’s okay that Steve said something shitty?

“Billy--”

“No, it’s… You’re right. You’re right. It’s fucked up that I keep coming down here.” And he starts to walk away, go up the stairs. 

Steve feels off. Bad. Like he’d gone to take a step and someone had removed the last stair. Like he’d missed something. Steve gets back in bed. Thinks. He has time to do this while Billy-- slowly, really slowly-- peels off his wet briefs. Pulls on dry sweatpants and a t-shirt. 

Steve thinks about how off Billy was, once he had sent his letter to Max. He thinks about how cold Billy’s face and nose and ears had been, when Steve came home Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday. How quiet he’d been when Steve picked him up from work. How he hadn’t wanted a Christmas gift. Hadn’t wanted to pick dinner. How he’d wanted to walk to work until Steve said he had to wear his coat. Like he didn’t want to be warm. Like he didn’t want Steve to do _ anything _ for him, like he didn’t get why Steve would even want to. 

When Billy gets under the covers, Steve plasters himself to his side. He slings an arm around Billy and holds him tight. 

“What?” Billy says, like the beginning of _ what do you want_, but Steve can feel him shift, fit himself into the embrace. 

“You’re important,” Steve says. Billy grunts, and even though it’s dark, Steve knows exactly what the grimace on Billy’s face looks like. 

Steve insists: “You _ are_. That’s why I wanna do shit for you. And get you food you like. And that’s why I wanna buy you a Christmas present. It makes me, like… happy? And shit? I dunno. I…” Steve swallows, and presses his lips against BIlly’s shoulder. Speaks against the thin fabric of the shirt. “I like you. I like you _ a lot_. I even liked you before the cookies. And you don’t _ have _ to stay in bed with me. But like… you don’t have to get out, either.” 

Billy doesn’t say anything. He’s very still, quiet. Steve looks up at him once, and he sees his silhouette, watches the flicker of his eyelashes as he blinks. 

After a long time, he turns. On his side, towards Steve. He presses a hand to Steve’s cheek. He kisses Steve’s forehead. 

He settles himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An end is not near, but it's in sight.  
I feel like I wrote this before?????


	37. thirty-six.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy gets something nice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting the unbeta'd version rn; will update with beta'd version later.

People keep wanting to give him things, and Billy doesn’t know how to feel about that. 

Give him things. Do things for him. Whatever. People keep looking out for him, or wanting him to be okay. It makes him feel a kind of way. Uncomfortable, mainly. 

Steve stops asking what he wants for dinner, yeah. But then he says shit like _ Oh, Billy, I can’t decide; should I make Campbell’s or order pizza tonight? _ And he makes it seem like Billy’s _ helping _ him, instead of actively making the choice about what they eat. He hates it. He’s pissed ‘cause Steve _ knows _ what he’s doing. But Steve doesn’t ask him _what do you want for dinner_, and he doesn’t say _ please let me buy you something for Christmas _ and he… he had called Billy _ important _again and…

Well. Billy can afford to help Steve pick dinner. 

One of the things that fucks him up the most, though, is what McCarthy does. 

Billy doesn’t get a lunch break at the garage, but at two-thirty, three o’clock-ish, he gets fifteen minutes to fuck around a bit. Friday, though, McCarthy tosses a keychain at him and tells him to take this shit car that’s been sitting out back for a spin. Billy does, and he comes back to tell McCarthy all the things about it that need fixing, and McCarthy nods and listens and asks if Billy wants it. 

“What?” Billy says, because he legitimately does not understand what he’s being asked. 

“Not for nothing, of course,” McCarthy says. “I’d ask you to come in a couple mornings a week for a while, in exchange. And keep track of what you use to fix her up. I’d give you half off wholesale supplies for whatever you need, and when you’re off you can work in the garage unless we have a real busy day.”

Billy blinks up at him. “Holy shit,” he says, and McCarthy laughs. 

The car is an unfortunate-looking ‘63 Rambler, pale bluegreen both outside and in. Billy had like, _ tasted _dust when he got into the damn thing, and Mc Carthy had been generous when he’d said _ take it for a spin_. The engine had barely even wanted to turn on. 

Billy loves it immediately. 

-

Billy doesn’t tell Steve about the car after work. He’s gonna. Obviously. But not right away. THere’s this little niggling fear in him, this old feeling, this warning that if he speaks the name of his gift aloud, it’ll be taken from him. It feels like… superstition. Maybe? Like, if you tell anyone your wish after you blow your birthday candles out, it won’t come true. But it’s not his birthday and-- here, he catches Steve’s gaze, gives him a little half-smile that’s met with a beaming grin --he already has what he wants. 

Billy gets all up in Steve’s space, when he’s trying to work out dinner. To be fair, he’s mostly just holding a frying pan and butter and making faces at them, doesn’t really seem in a hurry to do much of anything before Billy slides his hands under the hem of his jeans, over his hip bones. 

“Billy,” he says, and his put is audible, “I’m making _ dinner _.”

Billy laughs soft into the crook of Steve’s neck, presses teeth against the warmth of laughter. Steve sets the pan down with a shaking hand. 

He’s sweet. Steve’s _ sweet_, and Billy’s obsessed. Steve tilts his head back to Billy’s shoulder and makes these open-mouthed little gasps when Billy touches him, starts to stroke him over his underwear and tease his nipples underneath his shirt. 

It’s been hand stuff for them so far, in Steve’s bed. Sometimes humping until they come. But Billy is feeling bold, is taking off Steve’s pants and underwear, is getting on his knees for him in the Harrington kitchen. 

“Oh, _ shit _\--” Steve gasps when Billy puts his mouth on him, tongues at the head of his dick, against his slit. Steve’s big and Billy’s out of practice: he can only-- just barely-- fit maybe half of him in his mouth, has to slick his hand up, use it to reach the base. There’s more spit than tongue, and Billy has to back up and stretch out his jaw more than once. But Steve groans and groans, and he touches Billy’s hair and face and shoulders, and when he comes he says Billy’s name over and over and over again. 

“You’re so fucking pretty,” Steve says, once he’s slid down the counter to sit on the floor, brought this hand up to wipe spit and semen from Billy’s chin. Billy doesn’t know what Steve’s looking at. He has these big brown eyes and this flush crawling over his cheeks and down his chest and his lips are all pink from where he’d been biting them, in between _ Oh God, Oh God, _ and _ Billy, Billy, Billy_. 

“If anyone’s pretty--” Billy kisses up Steve’s jaw, wonders if Steve’s the kind of guy to want Billy to brush his teeth or rinse his mouth out or something-- “It’s _ you_, Harrington.”

“Shut the fuck up. _ Hargrove _.” He narrows his eyes, twists his hands up in the front of Billy’s shirt and pulls him close to kiss him deep. 

Steve jacks Billy off with quick, sure strokes, gives a little twist at the end of them that makes Billy’s legs tingle. And all through that, he’s kissing with tongue, eating Billy alive, like he can’t get enough. Kissing Billy breathless, taking him likes he needs him, swallowing every stilted little sound when he comes. 

Afterwards, when they-- curled into each others’ sides on the tile of the kitchen floor-- have caught their breaths, Billy tells Steve about the car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> during the pandemic, time is fake. thanks for your patience.  
like I've said several times now, we're coming to the end. but endings are hard!
> 
> Edit: the car is a 1963 AMC Rambler in Dusty Gold

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for making it this far! I'll update relevant tags as I go on.
> 
> Here is [my SpotifyⓇ inspo playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5ngr5pWlKhxOyH0YuOhWo9) for this fic. I've always been particular about what songs go where, so it's a bit short. I hope you enjoy the songs, if you happen to listen!
> 
> I am updating every Friday, Saturday if spoons run out.
> 
> Beta is [trashmage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashmage/), a 10/10 human being and a joy to be around.


End file.
